Highlights of 2010

Well 2010 has been a great year for birding and I have twitched more birds this year than ever. These are the special moments of 2010 that I have enjoyed the most.

Black Kite - January 2010 (Gigrin Farm, Wales)

This was a bird that came from nowhere in the middle of our incredibly harsh winter we had last year. The kite was a juvenile and believed to be an Eastern race. A group of us braved the harsh conditions to travel down to mid Wales to see the bird. The bird stayed about 10 weeks until it warmed up atleast. What a sight though, along with the Black Kite, it was fantastic to see 500+ Red kites flocking infront of us!



Black Kite


Bonaparte's Gull - January 2010 (Anglesey, Wales)

This bird was reported throughout December 2009 and then returned at the end of January at Traeth Lligwy on Anglesey. Thinking back, it was a mad rush to get to this bird and find the site as the bird was very mobile at times. After tripping into a stream after not looking where i was going, i finally caught up with the bird. Not to disimilar from a Black Headed Gull, but its size comparision was very noticeable.

Bonaparte's Gull (taken by Chris Bridge)

Black Throated Thrush - February 2010 (Newholm, North Yorkshire)

This bird was present way before I actually took the trouble to twitch the bird with Stephen Menzie. After catching up with a Smew and a Ring Necked Duck on the way, we arrived quite late. When reaching the site, we searched for over an hour, to then the bird showed well in the tree of the private garden.



Black Throated Thrush


Oriental Pratincole - May 2010 (Frampton Marsh, Eastern England)

Its not everyday a Pratincole makes it over to Britain and when the bird got confirmed as an Oriental, I found myself making my way over to see the bird. The bird showed relatively well but favoured hiding behind large leaves for part of our visit. It was a great bird to see and I think 6th for Britain? The bird stayed 10 days. On our way back to North Wales, we took a detour and twitched the Great Reed Warbler at Derbyshire.



Oriental Pratincole (taken by Chris Bridge)



Marmora's Warbler - June 2010 (Blorenge, Gwent, Wales)

This could well have been my bird of the year. The first Summer Male appeared early June and stayed a couple of weeks. The bird looked to be setting up a terrority singing and collecting nesting material. The bird showed very well at times completing circuits around the crowds viewing it. After viewing this lovely bird, we travelled a little further South to catch up with the Iberian Chiffchaff at Wentwood Forest also in Gwent. Again, a lovely little bird with a great little voice to go with it. 2 megas in one day!



Extreme Record shot of Marmora's Warbler



Pied Billed Grebe - November 2010 (Hollingworth Lake, Greater Manchester)

The last Pied Billed Grebe to reach the mainland Britain was 8 years ago, so this bird was definitely worth the visit. The bird was well twitched by alot of birders and the bird showed very well on the lake fishing occassionally.



Pied Billed Grebe



These were the main highlights but other birds included:

American Wigeon - Martin Mere, Lancs

Montagu's Harrier - East Anglia

Red footed falcon - Ouze Fen RSPB, Cambs

Lesser Yellowlegs - Inner Marsh Farm, Cheshire

Long Billed Dowitcher - Inner Marsh Farm, Cheshire

Crested Tit - Abernethy, Scotland

Golden and White Tailed Eagle - Isle of Mull

Lesser Scaup - Draycote Water, Warks

Waxwings - (Flock of 200) Denbigh, North wales


Lets hope 2011 is action packed bird wise and full of megas!

Garden Christmas Birding

I hope you've all had a very Merry Christmas. Due to the ice and snow, getting out at been somewhat very limited so my attention has been brought to the garden. With this tough time there has been alot more birds pouring into the garden and i've certainly had a lighter wallet due to the quantity of bird food i've been putting out!

Anyway over Christmas, I've been watching the birds closely and really enjoyed just taking the time to see what comes in. I have a great number of Blue tits and one or two Great and Coal tits coming in. House Sparrows have been present in good numbers and i've recently had a tree sparrow which was a speciality in North Wales, never mind the garden. 



Blue Tit

 Finches have been flocking in form of chaffinches, Greenfinches and Goldfinches. A Brambling was a very nice suprise just before Christmas feeding mostly on the seeds on the ground beneath the seed feeder.



Brambling

Here is a Chaffinch in comparrison to the Brambling



Chaffinch


Robins, Dunnocks and a very terrortorial Blackcap has made an appearance in the garden. The Blackcap must be a continental bird and is highly terrortorial and likes to stand its ground by chasing off any bird smaller than it. Is this usual? Whether it is or not, he finds his way over to the garden every winter in search of a battle.

Blackcap

In the hope of attracting a new bird to the garden, i've been placing out apples by the tonne. A couple of weeks ago, I had found a fantastic Waxwing just metres away from the house, so in the apples were in the hope of attracting one in. Thrushes have been flocking over the last few days to where i've had over 10 blackbirds, a couple of song thrushes, a mistle thrush and 3 stunning Redwings (which suprisingly were a first to the garden). 



Redwing

 During this cold snap, other birds have included a nice pied wagtail feeding on the seeds, collard doves, Starlings, wood pigeons, Jackdaws, Magpies, Black Headed Gulls and a nice Common Gull.

Coastal birding along the North Wales Coast

The North Wales coast has so much to offer and with a couple of days to spare over the weekend, I spent my time birding around some of the great sites it has to offer.

After popping into Conwy RSPB and being told I'd just missed a female Hen Harrier on the reserve, i shot off to Llanfairfechan to see what I could find on the incoming tide. Red Throated Divers showed well numbering up to 20 birds, There were approximately 50 Great Crested Grebes, but the main bird I was looking for was a Great Northen Diver, they are occassionaly seen off the coast. There were plenty of Cormorants along with 5 Eider (including 3 stunning drakes), 3 Red Brested Mergansers, a drake Scaup and 10 common scoter and then a smaller bird caught my eye alot closer to shore, it was a Slavonian Grebe in a lovely winter plumage.  

Next stop was Aber Ogwen (The spinnies NT) and a quick scan from the carpark produced a good number of Wigeon, Teal and Mallard. There were also 3 drake Goldeneyes. Next stop was Red Warf Bay on Anglesey and quickly caught up with Little Egrets, Oystercatchers, Redshank, Black Tailed Godwits and Curlew. There were also a good numbers of Sandlerling, ringed plover, Dunlin and 2 Grey Plover. The Rock pipits showed well, with 4-5 present.

Travelling back home, 12 Waxwings were reported from Rhuddlan, near the Sainsbury's, so I headed headed there with just a few minutes to spare before the birds headed West. Lets hope they stay in the area atleast to the new year!

Also in the area is a Snow Bunting on the Great Orme, 2 Lapland Buntings at Cemlyn and 2 Great Northern Divers at Holyhead.

Spain Birding April 2010

Catalonia, Spain 30th March - 8th April 2010

We arrived off the plane at 3pm so where myself and Chris Bridgett were picked up by Stephen Menzie. A fairly short travel of 45 mins or so took us to the reserve where we were to spend the next 10 days at (Aiguamolls). The first two days were spent exploring the local area of Spain and the reserve we were staying at. It didn’t take us long to catch up with Spain’s familiar sights of Cattle Egrets, Purple Herons, White Storks, Black Winged Stilts, Hoopoes and Subalpine and Sardinian Warblers. A short 10 minutes away to where we were staying, a Black Shouldered Kite had overwintered so we took a trip down to where we caught up with the superb bird flying over. The bird gave excellent views and then drifted away ascending upwards. We also had our first Zitting Cisticola, Green Woodpecker (Sharpei) of the trip and a relatively early whitethroat.


 

Black-Winged Stilt



Cattle Egret

 

White Stork

Moving back to observe the reserve in greater detail, we picked up 8+ little crakes (total of whole trip), purple swamphen and very good numbers of Little ringed plover, Spotted Redshanks, Green and Wood Sandpipers. Audouin’s Gulls are only passing migrants through the reserve but we had at least 11 birds at one time which was a very much welcomed sight. Water pipits gave good views throughout the trip with them being easily the commonest pipit seen. Bursts of common and pallid swifts circled over joined with massive numbers of Swallows, Martins and the occasional Red Rumped Swallow were fantastic to see.

Little Crake

 

Audouin's Gull



After a recent heavy dollop of snow, the Pyrenees seemed an excellent waiting opportunity and it proved just that. Leaving at 4am, we left to get an early start. We arrived by 6.30 as light was making a break. It was a different world and a sight I thought I’d seen the last of in February…Snow, ice and -4c. Within less of a couple of hours, we’d added 2 Golden Eagles, Crossbill, Crested Tit, Rock Bunting and Griffon Vulture to the lists. There were also a lot of commoner birds we’d see in Britain that we only saw in the Pyrenees such as Coal Tits, Goldcrests, Robins and Dunnocks. We soon stumbled across a brightly coloured green/yellow finch – a Citril finch. A stunning bird!

We soon after made our way down to a slightly lower level in the Pyrenees and picked up Southern Grey Shrike, Red Billed and Alpine Chough. After a couple of walks, we added a couple of excellent views of Ring Ouzels, Woodlarks and Cirl Buntings.

Day 4 brought us a more of a relaxing day around Aiguamolls as we travelled to another section of the reserve a couple of miles away. This provided us with Nightingale, Monk and Ring-Necked Parakeet, a flock of 20 Bee-eaters over and a Ferruginous Duck (which is also a good record for Spain). Later we got back and decided to take a quick look down on the reserve we were staying at. A quick scan produced an absolutely fantastic Collard Pratincole (one of my most anticipated birds I wanted to see). An absolute stunning bird and in flight, even more spectacular.

The following day saw us travelling 3 hours East heading towards Lleida. With some sites in mind, we headed to the first picking up a group of Calandra Larks (a site surrounded by ploughed and grassy fields). Not long after heading down the track we picked up a little Bustard which was a pleasant sight (more so than it’s call). We also saw a couple of groups of 3-4 birds in flight. Following this we caught up with a stone curlew flying away from us from the car.

Moving on to our second site (an arid scrubland) our target: Pin-Tailed Sandgrouse. The first birds we locked on to were 3-4 Spotless Starlings (birds that you don’t really have a true id to until you see them out in the field for the first time). A bird with a wet-look glossy coat which were nice to see. This was followed by an excellent Gt Spotted Cuckoo flying nearby. After walking for some time, we caught on to 3 P/T Sandgrouse flying at a good speed over. We got decent views of the golden colour and shape of the bird making the visit very much worthwhile. On the way out of the site, other birds we picked up were Western Bonelli’s Warbler, Short Toed Lark, Black Wheatear, Little Owl and Short Toed Treecreeper.

That night we travelled down to Ebro Delta (a large Nature Reserve situated 2.5 hours SE of Lleida). The location produced a massive selection of variety with atleast 200+ Greater Flamingos, 93 Little Stint, 20+ Kentish Plover, 12 Slender Billed Gulls, 3 Gull Billed Terns, 6 Avocet and 12 Caspian Terns (another stunning selection and all within a 400 metre radius of each other). Just before dusk a 15 minute sea watch produced 6 Arctic Skua and a Med Gull.



Kentish Plover

Slender-Billed Gull

Greater Flamingo



The next day was also spent at the same location to where we picked up good numbers of Whiskered Terns, a few Red Crested Pochards, 1 Squacco Heron, 12 Glossy Ibis, Curlew Sandpiper, Common Sandpiper and Woodchat Shrike. The last bird of the day before heading off back 4 hours North was a Lesser Short Toed Lark to which 3-4 birds were showing well on the beach.


Glossy Ibis



Day 7, 8 & 9 were spent back at Aiguamolls and Cap de Creus . The best of the rest were a couple of spectacular views of both Short Toed Eagle and migrating Ospreys and black kites. A Bonelli’s Eagle was a nice surprise gliding through the mountainous area. We also acquired a Darford Warbler, Thekla Lark, Rock Sparrow and Spotted Crake, Cuckoo and Moustached Warbler (back at the reserve). After 5/6 attempts of attempting to track down an Eagle Owl, we finally successfully locked on to one at Cap De Creus sat proud on a ridge across a valley. Once again another superb bird on the tick list. This was soon followed by two fantastic male Lesser Kestrels resting on the persistent winds.

The last day was screaming out for a sea watch as the winds had strengthened overnight to gale force. After finding a good sheltered spot, we set up scope and started tracking down some more specialties. There were a good 2000 + Yelkouan shearwaters, along with 8-10 Balearic and one Cory’s (Scopoli’s) passing extremely close to the cliffs. Gannet was also added along with Hobby and 4 Night Herons back at the reserve that evening.
We had 184 different species within the 9 days we were. Overall a fantastic trip and a location well worth visiting again in future years.



Cap de Creus