Hedge Fund

I literally shit myself yesterday driving into work. I was on survey the day before and I ambled in mid-morning. Driving down the snow and ice covered back-roads I noticed a bird of prey sat atop the hedge. I stopped fully expecting it to be a Sparrowhawk or Kestrel when blow me down with a feather it was a fucking massive female GOSHAWK! Once sphincter control had been regained the bird just stared me down. They truely are big...this had obviously just come off a kill as it had a blood-stained chest and face and looked mean. Cant believe the sighting. In a hedge. I haven't seen Gos on the deck before so to get such a view was mega. Sadly I had to trundle on otherwise I could have continued to stare out this mean motherf**ker.

Since I last posted I have been surveying. Latterly I was on Islay where I saw FA except a few Great Northern Divers (50+), single Black-throated Diver plus 40+ Red-throated Diver which is pretty unusual up there. A few Goldeneye were new for the island as well. You could tell the ground was covered in ice and some snow as the large gulls were in evidence actually being SEA-gulls as opposed to follow-the-tractor-gulls.

Going back even further into the mists of time was a survey down at Patrington Haven in 2 foot of snow. I got cold, I got wet. I saw some corking birds. Pick of the bunch were a couple of Snow Buntings on the floodbank which dropped in briefly before beetling away as I drove past in my 4x4 Fiesta*. Further excitement was elicited by raptorial goings on. A Peregrine decided that it wanted to give everything the hoolies by setting up court on the floodbank in full view of everything. I had a couple of views of a female Merlin blasting out over the mudflats but no kills noted which was cool. Sparrowhawks were seen a few times failing in similar ways to the Merlin. A Short-eared Owl was roosting in the plantation and it was flushed a few times by my beetling up and down. Last point of note ornithologically was a few fly through Twite. There were lots of Hares and Roe Deer on site and I kept flushing them from the plantation (which I sure gets good birds in easterlies - its like Sammy's and you can see sammy's from it. Travelling to the shop for my pie (all important) I was impressed by 3 coveys of Grey Partridge totalling 27 birds, including one of 13. I think all the Red-legs have died however...

*Not really a 4x4 I just treated it like one in the snow. I didnt crash/get stuck/freeze.

Paull Holme Strays

Had a yomp round Paull Holme Strays today clocking up 14.35km in the snow. Just glad I decided to move my car to cut another 3.5km off - was knackered anyway. In terms of birding it was standard estuary fare mostly in small numbers due to the cold. A Kestrel managed to kill a wader (possibly Redshank), first sucessful bird kill I have seen one make. Two different Peregrines buzzed through, neither making a catch. Im sure these were two seperate birds as one was tiny (male at a guess) and the other huge - really broad in the hips so must be a girl. My only other BOP was a male Marsh Harrier bimbling around the south end of the site. It is reasonably unusual to get an adult male on the Humber in winter - cream crowns yes but males usually leave the country.

There were loads of geese kicking about with about 110 Greylags and amongst these a surprising number of Pink-footed Geese (35 in total) which I think is the most I have seen on the deck in Yorks. Wildfowl were the over arching theme with about 800 ducks on site, largely Teal & Wigeon although 3 Pintail were pretty sexy. A single Woodcock was my second in two days - surely a sign of the times.

The site was largely under snow and ice except where tidal waters reached but a noticable thaw has started with the path becoming greener throughout the day. When I left the car it was -1 and at the end of the day 3 degrees so positively balmy. Thank god for my thermals.

Birding Podcast

About 2 years ago I broached the idea of a birding podcast with a mate (about the same time as I came up with the #rarevine twitter feed) but whilst we had the tekkers we failed in the knowhow department. I for one am glad. I didn't know enough about birding to be interesting/relevant and neither did my mate. On the flip side Charlie Moores of 10,000 birds does and he has taken this idea and assembled a humourous crack team including Mckinney and The Drunkbirder. This month they garble abut credibility (amongst other things including the Reservoir Cats). The link for Charlie's Naturally Talking site is http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk and the podcast is there. I will pop the drunkbirder, 10,000 birds and talking naturally in the old links section to the east. Get stuck in - I pissed myself laughing.

The Rigors of Winter

At present I am supposed to be on a boat in Wick harbour. As you may notice I'm not. This has a lot to do with the ridiculous amount of snow and very low temperatures (Wick is only 30 miles from -20 Altnahara). Eventually I decided it was untenable to even try to get there and we gave up. 8 inches of snow here. Snow day today so I have been largely playing with my daughter and the kids in the close. I have had a interesting birds in the garden though. Finally got my garden tick of  Great Spotted Woodpecker although it didnt come to the feeders it passed along the treeline at the end. Also had Fieldfare and Redwing in the garden rather than overhead. Black-headed and Common Gull have both touched down in the garden. Long-tailed Tits are sporadic visitors to the garden and very rare on the feeders so that when 9 birds arrived on the peanuts at dusk today it was tres pleasant. A daily large passage of corvids to roost is going on from 3pm at the moment so the garden is interesting for a change. Plenty of Chaffinches & Goldfinches knocking about at mo so hopeful for in garden Brambling or Redpoll.

My daughter Izzy watching her hand disappear

A view of the road.

Four Corners of a Kingdom

This may seem a bit random but if you follow me on twitter (@ornid) then you may have noticed that last saturday/sunday I managed to see ie not enter all four of the home countries plus Eire in less than 24 hours.

This 'epic' achievement (I WAS proud) was on the back of a marathon 6 day survey which started at half 5 on friday with Luca picking me up heading to Birkenhead. Here we joined up with Ray and boarded the Prince Madog - a fab boat if ever I saw one. Luxury. We left the Mersey to loads of shite hawks and Anthony Gorley's Another Place - a truely remarkable piece of sculpture and one that I wholeheartedly endorse. Due to admin we were unable to start work until late doors but managed a surprise Black-throated Diver. Finishing after dark (yes really!) our visual survey stayed offshore, ready to take advantage of the early morning moonlight. The bright lights of Prestatyn ket us going.

Saturday started with Bacon on brown with a side order of over 1000 Common Scoter. Impressive although I abjectly failed to find a Surfie or rarer. A touch scarcer though was a Great Northern Diver. This was a post build site so we were surrounded by Cormorants, crap and giant windmills. Interest wained save for Grey Seal and we pushed on to Menai Bridge. Followed by a taxi to Birkenhead, followed by a drive to the Mull of Kintyre. Nice.

Largely uneventful, 10 deer were noted on the small roads of Argyll. Most noticable was the beast of Exmoor reincarnate wandering round the oncoming lane in the middle of Tarbet, at  the head of Loch Lomond. super scary!!

Survey can be largely glossed over as same old same old save for 4 Little Auks  (year tickage) plus a variety of divers. The Little Auks were distant ish but not an adequate grip back for the previous weeks Ross's Gull off the obs. Bah. We did however see Antrim and Donegal

Better views were had over the next few days of Little Auks but the trip total staggered to 8 birds. The Islay site over Monday/Tuesday was dross with 180 birds in 10 hours. SSSSSSSSSSSLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!! Did see a Redwing nearly get drowned after getting caught in our slipstream, although thankfully the collective will of the surveyors proved like wind to the wings and it recovered to fly strongly toward Donegal.

The final avian highlight was a distant Golden Eagle being bombed by a couple of Ravens. 2 small dots and one bigger dot. Good news - apparently Sea Eagles have bred for the first time on Islay. Corking - will have to kee an eye out.

Apart from slow birding it was a nice trip. Could do with sum rare to skor.

Pied-billed Grebe and some other stuff...

Last weekend myself and the former Uptonite Tim Jones headed across the pennines. This was a perrilous journey, largely because Id forgotten I had the opticians so we were later than expected and then I missed the M62 as Tim regaled tales of Fair Isle. We arrived at Hollingworth Lake at bout 3ish and realised we had a heck of a walk to get the bird. I started to worry about the light and we hot-footed it round the eastern side of the reservoir. As we did this we lookeed for the birders who were miles away.

Bally to you lot is all I can say as the Pied-billed Grebe came to greet us, swimming into the bank a mere 10 feet from where we stood. To say the views were stunning would be to undermine the views. The eye ring was nicely on view, and a surprisingly long-tail. The bird didn't look like a big Little Grebe at all with a very different, less compact jizz and a rocking of its neck whilst it was surfaced. It almost outdid itself however when it bought a biggish perch to the surface and subsequently took 5 minutes swallowing it. It got there but im sure belly-ache ensued as it gave up feeding and drifted off across the lake at which point we drifted back to the car.

That completed my UK grebes and was a nice grip back from the '99 birds. Takes me onto 316 UK (although that could well become 317 with the Collared fly being supported by genetic evidence).

Last week I did a bit of survey work on the saltmarshes of the outer Humber. Standard waders with clouds of Knot, Bar-tailed Godwit, Dunlin and the like, highlights came in the shape of a male Hen Harrier getting the hurry up from a Peregrine that was resting on the flood bank. Thankfully Hen Harriers are still regular in this location and this is the second male I have seen here this year. A bit more raptor interest was provided by a Kestrel hunting for voles and a few Sparrowhawks making forlorn forays onto the mudflats in search of a takeaway. No Twite, Snobs or Laps today.

Lastly my Rough-legged Buzzard surfaced again at Great Kelk - halfway between the original sighting location and my house...garden tick coming??

Kintyre

Last weekend I went for a quick sojorn to Islay/Kintyre but due to the weather was only able to get the Kintyre survey done. A good journey up was completed quickly and we arrived on Islay in total darkness on saturday. No birds of note on the way up with Buzzard counting being the highlight. Our skipper was in bed early and so as not to wake him we retired to the pub. Our regular haunt was filled with arseholes getting lary so we decided to head for the smaller pub to avoid facial injury.

After some convivial drinks where we all swapped birding stories with our newest recruit, Steve (turns out I saw him being interviewed at the Alder Flycatcher twitch a couple of years ago). A slightly restless night was had but we were on song in the morning as we headed toward Macharihnish (spelling?).

On survey we had a steady day but the highlights were many and varied with female Long-tailed Duck perhaps deserving top billing. Other stars included the return of 25 or so Great Northern Divers including some in the last vestiges of their summer finery plus a couple of Black-throated Divers. Two skeins of geese were noted, both of exactly a dozen. Firstly a group of Pink-feet headed south and later some Greenland white-fronts headed east. All in all very nice.

We quickly headed back to the mainland to get away before the storm hit and whilst travelling through West Loch Tarbert had large numbers of Great Northerns and plenty of Red-breasted Merganser and Black Guillemot. A most enjoyable survey!