Southwards for a change

The Safari picked up CR and headed south across the river to meet IH at our boyhood birding haunts.on arrival we immediately saw why IH had told us not to look for the previously regular(ish) Little Owl, its favourite tumbledown house had been demolished prior to redevelopment. It was a bright, crisp winter's day and on Lunt Meadows itself the first pool was totally frozen over and also totally lacking in life. Needless to say we didn't stay more than a couple of minutes before heading round the rest of the reserve in a clockwise direction. A birder we met at the gate told us he'd seen both a Hen Harrier and a Marsh Harrier earlier in the morning so to keep our eyes peeled. While waiting for us to arrive IH had already seen a Buzzard too, we can remember when Buzzards were almost unheard of in these parts and should one turn up it would have been top of the local gamehkeepers' hit lists. Thankfully things have changed for the better; for Buzzards at least, not so much the Hen Harriers which still suffer horrendous illegal persecution.

The first field held its usual large gaggle of feral Grey Lag and Canada Geese. There were probably more of the latter than we saw in Canada last year, although to be fair we didn't see that many. Beyond the geese the edge of the frozen pool saw a few Lapwings and Coots roosting up conserving energy in the cold conditions. A Reed Bunting flew over and a  Blackbird skulked about the boundary hedge but much more bizarre was the Ring Necked Parakeet that flew over us. We had no idea they were anywhere near hereand as non-native species go we'd much sooner have the Little Owl than these pesky parrots.

We anbled slowly on towards the next pool where a small group of birders were stood, hopefully with the 'main event' in view. The main event being an American Green Winged Teal which has been on site for at least as long as its moulted into its plumage with the vertical white shoulder stripe enough to separate it from the hundreds of our own green winged Teals. Fortunately the birders already had a scope set up on it although it wasn't showing particularly well. Can you see it?

We had the brainwave of noticing there was a bit of a gap between the Wigeon that were obsuring it and the Teal to the right so moved down the track ten yards or so to see if that made a better  viewing angle, it did, quite a bit better. The cold breeze was making us shake around rather a lot when taking pics but here there was a stout fence post without vegetation around it to lean on.

Other ducks on the pool included Mallards, some Shelducks, a few Shoveler and a handful of Gadwall with a few Coots and a couple of Moorhens thrown in for good measure. A Redshank flew in calling, possibly hoping for some soft ground to probe for worms in but it would be out of luck the ground along the track was rock hard beneath our boots. Wandering on we wondered where all the Cetti's Warblers were, usually they are the noisiest bird on the site but today there were silent. At the next pool there was some open water but most of the ducks were hauled out on the ice asleep.

Scans of the horizon, much more distant from here as the viewing point is elevated a few feet above the track, gave us no sign of any raptors even tyhough the sun was now beginning to get some warmth to it and the morning chill was going out of the air. We moved swiftly on heading to the river. The hedge beside the path was lively with small birds, indeed it was easily the liviest part of the reserve. There were Chaffinches, Greenfinches, Robins, a Wren, Reed Buntings a female of which stayed still long enough for us to point the lens at.

And right at the end of the hedge two Dunnocks sat up in the top of a Hawthorn bush, not often you see two of these skulky little devils sat out in an exposed position at the same time!

The river gave us paddling Mallards and some Lapwings in the fields beyond. Two distant Buzzards were found and a distant Heron along with a flock of small birds, Linnets or Skylarks or something else??? They were a very  long way off. We kept an eye on the reedbeds stretching below us on our side of the river just in case a Bittern should pop up - no such luck! It's amazing to think that this area is only a mile or so from our boyhood home ands we used to traipse the fields of spuds, carrots and cabbages that used to be here on our bike with a pair of almost un-see-through bins seeing nothing but Lapwings, Skylarks, Grey Partridges and occassionally in winter a skein of Pink Footed Geese - how times have changed...Bitterns a mile from our front door - who'd have believed it. The Grey Partridges are still here but sadly not much more numerous than the Bitterns now and we didn't see any today.

Having completed the circuit of the reserve it was getting near butty time and IH suggested quick nip to the coast rather than eat our scran at the car with little or nothing to look at. But rather than going to hall Road coastguards he suggested driving up to Hightown to start the coastal walk from the north end - good plan! It must be 50 years since we last crossed the railway into Hightown village and we'd never have found the parking spot access to the dunes without following IH. There we grabbed our butties and headed out to the river mouth passing through a little fence IH told us he'd helped build as a coastal volunteer about 40 years ago...all creditr to him, it still looks pretty sturdy!

A short walk brought us to the river mouth where we sat on the frozen dunes and admired the view out across the wider Mersey bay over a mirror calm sea while tucking into all manner of pies and sandwiches. Over on the sandbanks there was a huge number of waders roosting up over the high tide, Knot, Dunlin, Oystercatchers, Curlews, Redshanks and a couple of Little Egrets, a throng of Great Black Backed Gulls lined the far bank of the Alt and further out a line of Cormorants stood on the outer edge of the sanbank. More of their number roosted on the channel marker nearby while below them a large number of  Shelducks pottered about in the shallows and river channel. Scanning further out we couldn't find any Harbour Porpoises even though conditions were perfect for spotting any that might have been there.

Butties mucnhed we set off southwards along the shore line, the low afternoon sun made looking that way uncomfortable at times but at least it was warm now and we soon felt overdressed in our full winter togs.

The ebbing tide was revealing fresh mud and soon more flocks of Knot along wit ha large flock of Black Tailed Godwits flew in to take advantage of the freshly uncovered feeding areas. Walking south towards Crosby and past the WW2 bomb rubble on the beach we hoped to find some more waders although the tide seemed to be taking a long time to drop and leave a particularly favoured spot uncovered, one we've been watching since the early 70s. It's quite weird thinking back and realising there was a lot less time between the end of WW2 with that rubble being dumped there and us starting birding the area than there is between those early birding adventures and now. How time flies.

We did come across a couple of Turnstones feeding quite high up the beach.

And then saw a Grey Plover fly in showing its black axcillaries very nicely as it fluttered to a halt on the rocks (=bricks etc) on the water's edge. Trouble is we had to cautiosly get a dozen or more yards past it to look back on it with the sun behind us. Luckily our snaeking around skills didn't let us down and it stayed put allowing a few snaps.

The area has always been good for Stonechats and today was no exception. Not sure how many we saw today as they can be quite mobile but we'd hazard a guess at at aleast half a dozen. They seem to be particularly good at two things today - keeping just out of range and/or staying on the wrong side of the light. Eventually we caught up with a trio that nearly behaved for us. We only managed a pic of a young one, the snazzy male leaving his perch on a tangle of heavy duty wire a millisecond before we pressed the shutter button.

By now it was time to head back to the car before it got too dark for pics. It was a bit of hasty retreat but there wasn't too much to see along the way. We took a shorter,easier walking route back which passed by the Natterjack Toad breeding ponds - no chance of these warm weather creatures being out today, their ponds were frozen solid...a spring evening visit is on the cards to here these 'Lancashire Nightingales' singing. The low sun illuminated the seed heads of the Reeds beautifully though.

The shortly before reaching IH's ancient fence we spied a flash of white moving in a Sea Buckthorn thicket, a couple of Fieldfares were using their wings to balance their eway through the prickly mass to get to the choicest berries. A Blackbird was in there too and managed to flush on of the Fieldfares low and to the back tof the bush. Fortunately the other one stayed on the front of the bush but unfortunately in the heavily shaded part rather than the brightly lit patch a yard to the left - how annoying!

A few minutes later we were back at the cars saying farewell until next time to IH and heading back to Base Camp after a lovely day out on safari in our old haunts.

 

Where to next? Could be anywhere.

 

In the meantime let us know who's eating berries in the dark in your outback - and don't say Waxwings - - sore point!

The annual safari to the east coast - Day 1

 The Safari has to pick the few days with LCV and IH over to Spurn on the Yorkshire coast many months in advance, the trouble with this is sometimes you hit the good migration weather but most times we don't...which would this safari's weather be? We'd been following the weather patterns across Scandinavia and the North Sea for a few days prior and it looked like would be tricky birding to start with as unwanted westerly winds racing across the country from the Atlantic but then improving towards the end of our stay...yeah nice one...but did that happen? Read on!

Our birding day started somewhere west of Hull on the motorway as the first hint of light in the eastern sky saw first a couple of Mallards in the air then hordes of gulls streamming north west from an unknown roost followed by the first of the Carrion Crows.

Once past Hull excitement grows as the flat fields are checked for more species to add to the list, unfortunately it was almost exclusively Red Legged Partridges and Pheasants that had been released for shooting that we saw. As we neared our destination the in-car chat turned to where to go first, invariably we head for the seawatching hide as soon as we arrive but with an American Wigeon having spent the last few days at the closer Kilnsea Wetlands we decided to bunk in there first and get that under our belt...if it was still there. A good move as it happened, as we walked up the path to the hide a Barn Owl flew past us going to roost in the nearby barn with breakfast (or should that be supper?) in its talons.

A scan of the rest of the farmyard didn't give us the hoped for Little Owl though. At the hide a young Roe Deer buck was slowly making its way along the bank to the left of us, we'd already seen lots in the fields over the last few miles, this part of Yorkshire is like the Serengeti at times there's so many deer to be seen in broad daylight.

The tide was in and the wetland was packed with waders and waterfowl resting up waiting for the mudflats to become exposed again. A scan through the massed ranks of Redshanks soon brought a couple of Spotted Redshanks into view, but why did they have to be the furthest birds away from us?

The American Wigeon wasn't so easy hiding itself well among around 120 Wigeon, 80 Pintail and 160 Teal with assorted Gadwall, Mallard, Grey Lag Geese and Canada Geese to hide behind. With help from other birders already in the hide we eventually picked its head out, the rest of it was hidden behind a grassy bank at the rear of the pool, like the Spotted Redshanks it was miles away! We'd be able to get a better view of it from the screen round the corner but for now we were content to peruse the waders at close quarters, one Dunlin in particular was very close.

After a look at the waders, which included some Knot hiding among the Redshank throng, at least a dozen Avocets, a smaller number of Black Tailed Godwits, a couple of Bar Tailed Godwits, seven Greenshanks, half a dozen Grey Plovers with an attendant Golden Plover, a solitary Lapwing , which we were told was a scarce sighting here - odd we thought, we're sure we'd seen them in good numbers here in the past, a few Ringed Plovers and while we're on long legged thingies, a Heron and a good half dozen Little Egrets...oh and lots of gulls including well over 20 Mediterranean Gulls...and a lone Sandwich Tern...it was like the Eric Morecambe and Allen Pools at our favourite Leighton Moss reserve but on steroids! This place is ace! It even had Pink Footed Geese flying over just like home. All was quiet in the hide as we all enjoyed the wader/waterfowl spectacle before us, quiet that is until a head poked round the door and said "there's a White Tailed Eagle in the field over the road". SCRAMBLE - GO - GO -GO!!! Once outside news was that it was in the air going north. beside the hide door there's a tall bank to screen the birders from the birds, we tried to be clever and ran down the path to the left thinking, wrongly, that the further we got from the bank the more we'd be able to see over it - we saw nothing as apparenty it had kept very low. LCV on the other hand dashed off with the crowd back towards the car park and got a glimpse of it as it flapped lazily like a giant Heron into the distance and probably right over IH's car as he turned up just as the excitement (and/or disappointment) was dying down.

With the full team now assembled and the American Wigeon 'nailed on' we went back up the 'eagle dipping path' to look for the American Wigeon from the screen. It was there but still a bit distant and took a bit of finding.

It was easier when something flushed the ducks and they shuffled around a bit.

By now it was mid-morning and a brew in the Visitor Centre was beckoning but first we had another look from the hide. Well worth it as we had a male Marsh Harrier come over the sea wall at the same time a Peregrine tazzed about and a Kestrel hovered and were lucky enough to get all three in the bins at the same time. While watching the raptors someone pointed out a Yellow Wagtail on the mud in the far corner, a bird we rarely see these days so a bit of a shame it was so far away, it could have done the decent thing and played around with the point-blank Dunlin below our window. As it happened there were actually two but only one wuold come out from behind the Thistles at a time. When we first looked we could only see a couple of Pied Wagtails.

But we only had to wait a minute for one of the Yellow Wagtails to show, getting a half acceptable pic was another matter...

Not the best pic of a Yellow Wagtail you'll ever see but you should just about able to make it out in the centre of the pic.

The Roe Deer from earlier put in another appearance too.

We had a go at getting pics of some Grey Plovers that had strayed into range and began walking closer still.

But a passing Merlin darted over their heads flushing them before they came much closer. We then turned our attention to trying to get some pics of different plumages of Mediterranean Gulls sat close together but hey weren't really playing ball and we could only manage three adults and a second winter.

Eventually the Grey Plovers returned and we got great views, a couple of Knot came a bit closer too.

 

 Fortunately several Knot came even closer.

The Golden Plover alsiputo in an appearance.

With all that activity we'd almost forgetten about getting a brew so back to the cars it was passing a different Roe Deer on the way.

After being suitably refreshed and caffeined upit was back to the birding. The adjacent Canal Scrape was our first stop where a Little Grebe was busy devouring 3-spined Sticklebacks. A Curlew briefly probed the grassy area to the right and a couple of Moorhens poked around the back of the pool. Other than that it was deadly quite. A Snipe was asleep on the water's edge oppposite but as much as we scanned we couldn't find any others or any Jack Snipe. Now LCV had brought along a right tricky Thermal Imaging gizmo and this seemed the perfect time and place to give it a whirl. It immediatly found two 'heat signatures', one stonger than the other, about a foot apart not far to the right of the Snipe. Persistant viewing with the bins eventually found them to be two more Snipe but incredibly hard to see dee among the cut reeds and without the aid of the Thermal Imager would have passed over as just shadows in the tall grass. A small bird dived int othe reeds from on high, probably a Reed Bunting but it was so far in to the reedbed that the Thermal Imager couldn't 'see' it.

The wind had died down a little bit and the sun had come out so we had a look round the village for any small birds that might have been hunkered down in the worst of the weather. Not much doing a couple of Chiffchaffs and a few Goldcrests were all we could muster. There was plenty of insect action, or really inaction, in the churchyard where we found a selection of winged beasties doing their best to glean some heat from the church wall. There were at least seven Common Darters and a selection of other flies and hoverfles.

Exhausting the possibilities around the village we headed back down the road to have a late seawatch, passing a family of Stonechats on the way. We were really struggling for passerines having only seen a few Swallow, House Martins and a single Sand Martin going through and not a single thrush of any species nor even a Wren nor a Robin. The only small bird that seemed to be about in any numbers were Cetti's Warblers, we'd heard several scattered about so far.

So it was to be seawatching for the rest of the afternoon and for the first time ever we entered a dark and unoccupied hide - where was everybody? Not long after getting the scopes set up we had a juvenile Marsh Harrier come in off the sea which was good, seen a couple more Kestrels footling about in the still strong wind and had a few Common and Sandwich Terns come past. On the sea were small numbers of Guillemots and a handful of Razorbills scattered about with a still summer plumaged Red Throated Diver not too far offshore. More Red Throated Divers passed southwards in the distance and mostly Common Terns continued to pass in the middle to close range. A local lad joined us and was soon onto a trio of Common Terns only as they drew nearer he saw that one of the them was a Black Tern, a good find for our Trip List. He and LCV also saw a 'hirundine' darting about miles away close to the furthest right turbine out to sea. What could it be? Far to far away to be able to see something as small as a Swallow, maybe a Swift of some unknown species? Could it be something else hawking about. The lad suggested it could be a Nighjar that was waiting for the cover of darkness before coming in to land.We didn't see it and eventually it was ignored as too far away to be identifiable. Other possible species like Snipe or Merlin, the latter apparently hunt incoming passerines using turbines as a vantage point and launch pad, hadn't entered our minds.

As the afternoon wore on and the passage birds dried up, with only a big bull Grey Seal to watch our thoughts turned to the luscious grub and hearty pints in the Crown & Anchor. While walking back to the car a shout went up from a couple of birders by the gate arms waving out over the Humber; "Glossy Ibis". Now LCV was still faffing and chatting to the other birder so IH, having seen the bird dashed back (he's far better at dashing than we are) to let them know but to no avail it had gone to ground in the depths of the salt marsh by the time they'd caught up with us. A bad miss for LCV but then he did get the White Tailed Eagle earlier. The cars was duly loaded with all the kit and we drove back up to the pub, passing on the way the Glossy Ibis it flew over the road as we were passing the church and LCV got brilliant views of it in glorious late afternoon sunshine from the driving seat - not a bad 'While Driving' tick!

Food and beer were ordered, not necessarily in that order, and while we were sat waiting for our grub to appear we watched a Kestrel (of which there seemed to be far more than usual about - a bit of passage today?) struggling to cling on to the telephone wires running down the street. After being blown about on there it decided to try to perch atop the telegraph post where it clung on for dear life for several minutes its talonss gripping the timber with as much tenacity as the bird could muster. It gave up and tried to have a little hover over the saltmarsh butu got blow backwards and over the buildings along the road and out of sight behind us. But that wasn't the last we saw of it - a little while later we saw it crash chin first in to the middle of the road, far from the controlled decent on to an unsuspecting vole this was a full blown belly flop and must have hurt. It gathered its senses and flew up onto the low sea wall where it sat hoping no-one had seen it for several minutes while it composed itself. We've never seen a bird of prey land like that it must have bben absolutely knackered - if it had just crossed the North Sea against that wind it certainly would have been.

Once our meals had been devoured it was off to our digs passing by the gas works where we saw a Fox run, or more like amble, across the road in front of us and then not 100 yards further on a Rabbit on the grass verge. No Barn Owls for us on this stretch of road tonight unlike previous yaers whe nwe have seen them hunting the meagre verges along the road.

The last bird of the day was a Tawny Owl hooting from the trees across the road outside the bedroom window as we closed our eyes for a good night's kip after an unusual but nevertheless interesting first day at Spurn.

 

Where to next? Anything can happen at Spurn, what would the weather be doing (not promising) and what goodies might it bring - if any?

In the meantime let us know who's crash landing in your outback.