2019: the rare bits

2019 was a year of change for me - a change of jobs in this case - which often results in a bit of a slow down on the twitching front as 'more important' things take precedence. But I still managed a few additions to my British list through a combination of effort and good fortune.

Tengmalm's Owl, Tresta, Sheland, 13th April

The roosting owl was just feet above our heads but there was room for only three people at a time to view it

The owl spent most of the time asleep but when it awoke we watched it eating a Redshank caught, presumably, the previous night

Team Tengmalm - Andy Mears, Dave Gibbs, Chris Turner and Chris Wilkinson

The year started inauspiciously as a Tengmalm's Owl on Shetland seemed hopelessly out of reach, despite turning up during a week off at February half-term. But I've never twitched Shetland and was sort of happy to keep it that way. The bird went off the radar after a few weeks but was rediscovered as Easter approached and we were heading north for a family holiday in Speyside which, as all students of Scottish geography know, is just down the road from Lerwick. Suddenly, the Owl seemed do-able, and with a little help from some friends and a wacky races style canter through the various modes of transport which the northern isles have to offer, I managed to catch up with my first new British bird of 2019 on 13th April, returning via the Northlink ferry the following morning and arriving back at the holiday cottage before the rest of my super-tolerant family had finished breakfast.

The Slimbridge Little Bustard, 23rd June: with some imagination, the black and white, 'v-neck' jumper of Slytherin House can be seen

A clear candidate for the @recordshotmyarse Twitter feed

My Brown Booby photos were another candidate for @recordshotmyarse

Note the all dark upperparts and diamond shaped tail...

...and the clear demarcation between dark breast band and white belly

The rest of the spring passed without incident on the rarity front but just as the summer doldrums were due to set in a male Little Bustard at Slimbridge set the pulse racing again. Fortunately it turned up on a Sunday afternoon and as I was out and about birding in Dorset when it was located, I was able to drop everything and head to Slimbridge where the elusive Bustard occasionally lifted its head through the long grass of the Dumbles.

Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Davidstow Airfield, 7th September

This charming bird rescued an otherwise grim day dipping on Britain's second Brown Booby

A great location for American waders

Chough at Kynance Cove

Marcus and Phil dipping at Kynance Cove

Other Kynance dippers, looking like a routed army from 'Lord of the Rings'

The end of August produced sporadic sightings of Britain's first confirmed sighting of a Brown Booby off St Ives. The bird was seen on alternate days for most of the week, but not on the Friday, but I gambled and went down to Cornwall early on the Saturday morning anyway, reacquainting myself with two of the Shetland team (Messrs Gibbs and Mears) and another pelagic birding pal Anthony Griffiths. When news of the Booby fishing off Gwithian Towans broke that morning, we were too far west down the coast to see it, but scoping the clifftop we could see the car park from where it was being watched. Bundling into the car, some moderately assertive driving saw us arrive just in time to see the bird well offshore heading back to where we had just come from! The bird famously sat on some inshore rocks at St Ives later that day but I arrived minutes too late to enjoy the once-in-a-lifetime (in a British context) views. Although I saw the bird that still felt like a dip!

Eastern Olivaceous Warbler, Farlington, Hants, 14th September

Eastern Olivaceous Warbler

Eastern Olivaceous Warbler

Eastern Olivaceous Warbler

A week later and I returned with Marcus Lawson and Phil Saunders for an actual Brown Booby dip as the second British record at Kynance Cove most unexpectedly did an overnight bunk, scuppering my hopes of improving on my photos from the previous week. Close up views of Cornish-bred Choughs and an obliging Buff-breasted Sandpiper at Davidstow Airfield on the way home saved that particular day.

Paddyfield Pipit, Sennen, 6th November

Sonograms and DNA tests have proven it's a Paddyfield Pipit - but how did it get to Cornwall?

Nice to bump into the talented artist Richard Thewlis again, sketching this bird in the rain 

An extraordinary record and kudos to those with inquiring minds, including my friend James Lowen, who questioned the initial identification, and others who then sussed the true identity

Paddyfield Pipit

September also produced a new bonus bird for Britain close to home when an Eastern Olivaceous Warbler was discovered at Farlington Marshes just over the border in Hampshire. Not the prettiest or the rarest of the megas, but a welcome occurrence nonetheless as I had missed one on Portland a few years ago. I was actually tipped off to its presence before the news broke on the information services in a phone call from Dorset birder Roger Howell. Roger had a friend on site but due to a mis-transcription of the message, the news reached me as an Eastern Orphean Warbler. I was on the way there by the time I realised the error - but would have been happy with either!

An American Buff-bellied Pipit kept company with the Paddyfield Pipit - for a few weeks it was the best stinky field in Britain for rare birds!

Buff-bellied Pipit

My fifth of this species having seen one at Farmoor, two at Staines and one on Shetland previously

Buff-bellied Pipit

Drake Lesser Scaup at Helston boating lake was another bonus on the way home from the Paddyfield Pipit

Despite enjoying several weeks off between jobs during the peak rarity-hunting season of October, I was unable to add to my British list during the month - though November saved the day with the incredible record of a Paddyfield Pipit in Cornwall, a first for Britain if the record is accepted. Assuming so, I will end 2019 having seen 476 species in Britain (BOU) plus what I suppose we must now call a 'Fea's-type' Petrel off Scilly in 2015. That brings a step closer the major milestone of 500 which I ought to reach before retirement. Especially if they keep moving the retirement age up :-).

Tengmalm's Owl - bird of the year for many British birders - including myself

Bluff-chested Handwiper

A six hour session with the Buff-breasted Sandpiper today provided plenty of opportunity to point it out to passers by, most of whom seemed genuinely interested, particularly when told about its provenance from North America. Quite a few though seemed to have trouble remembering its name, despite it being only seconds between me telling them and them reciting it back to me. 'Bluff-chested, you say'; 'Chuff-crested, is it?'; 'A Rough-legged whatwasit?', I had them all. In the end I decided to tell them I was looking at the metal detectorists who were prospecting in the same field. Much less scope for confusion.

Buff-breasted Sandpiper

Slightly ruffled in this one

It never came as close as I had hoped...

...but certainly an improvement on my previous efforts

A very dinky wader

During one of its frequent rest stops

Sandpiper on a stick. Spoiling a perfectly good photo of a metal detectorist.

Wheatear

Plenty of Wheatears in the area

Whitethroat feeding on elderberries

An evening out

It's that time of year when autumn rarities start turning up, and if they do so close to home, there might just be time to twitch them between finishing work and sundown. So as I ambled out of the office on Thursday night I checked the pager to find that a Buff-breasted Sandpiper had been located on the Dorset coast.

Buff-breasted Sandpiper

Having seen one nearby a few years ago, I wasn't planning to dash off. Then I remembered I was supposed to be doing a photo year-list, and at this stage of the game it wasn't exactly going to tick along of its own accord. Mindful of the maxim that motivation comes from action, not the other way around, I quickened my pace from the train to home, got changed and headed to Ringstead under threatening skies.

Near the White Nothe - species #224 on the photo year-list

The view to Portland from the National Trust car park was stunning and moody. But given the lateness of the hour, there was no time for sightseeing. I saddled up with camera and scope and headed east. I was in such a hurry I quite forgot my manners: only after I hurdled the stile from the car park on to the track to White Nothe did I notice the posh-looking car containing a posh-looking couple who had apparently been waiting for me to open the five-bar gate next to the stile as I passed. He had his hands outstretched, palms upturned in a 'why didn't you open the gate?' kind of gesture. Resisting the temptation to say 'sorry, mate, despite its feudal image we did actually abolish serfdom in Dorset several centuries ago', I scurried past, muttering something apologetic about having urgent business to attend to. Yes, in a field.

The Sandpiper spent short spells sitting tight in the field

A few field widths later, I arrived at the spot where the bird was last seen. Finding it was easy as the ever thoughtful Nick Urch had staked it out just in case any short-sighted late-comers like me turned up. While the sun briefly threatened to provide some late evening light as it dipped below a bank of slate grey cloud to the west, in the end it never quite made it, and so I had to settle for shoddy pictures in poor light. I went back for more tonight and while the light was slightly better, the bird was more elusive, hiding just over the brow of a field until the sun had almost gone again. But a few late rays illuminated the North American visitor's scalloped back beautifully.

A very small bird in a very big landscape

Bedraggled, and far from home

Despite being a former resident of Westminster, Southwark, Lambeth, Lewisham and Hillingdon, I've said before how I feel a bit out of place in the capital these days. Returning to a rainy London yesterday, it once again felt like a giant metaphor for how the whole species seems determined to accelerate its progress towards becoming a stain in the geological record.

This morning, for example, I noticed on the Jubilee Line that those cardboard adverts which used to climb the walls alongside the escalators have been replaced by banks of LCD screens. A waste of energy as well as being pointless - I went the whole length of one without being able to work out what I was being sold. And before someone points out that 'full life-cycle analysis suggests that the LCD adverts have a lower carbon footprint than the old ones', I'm having none of it. As the great Stewart Lee says 'You can prove anything with facts'.

The 100-yard, horizontal moving walkways in the bowels of Waterloo station represented a further waste of energy in a City with more than its fair share of the morbidly obese. Any species which requires a moving walkway, and, more to the point, a sign to tell it that 'The moving walkway is ending' at the end of the moving walkway, is surely over-due being re-lumped with its simian ancestors.

So what's this got to do with birds? Very little, to be honest. Apart from that the event I was attending was at Defra. When not culling it, they are in charge of the wildlife. The reception area was adorned with beautiful images from a wildlife photography exhibition. A civil servant met us to take us to the meeting room, and as we paused by the photos he said, wryly, 'you won't find any badgers on there...'

Despite this bit of dark humour, by the time I got home, I still felt about like this Buff-breasted Sandpiper looked when I twitched it on Tuesday after a work commitment in Yeovil put me within striking distance of a wet and windy Curry Moor: bedraggled, a bit dis-orientated but alive at least. As long-winded and tenuous links to unremarkable bird photos go, I think that was pretty impressive. So come on October, cheer me up with something proper rare...

Buff-breasted Sandpipers in Dorset

Buff-breasted Sandpiper

News of a Buff-breasted Sandpiper on Brownsea yesterday arrived too late in the day to attempt to see it, so a second chance to see two near White Nothe after work tonight was not to be missed. I approached from the east, a bracing yomp over a mile-and-a-half of fields, walking into the wind and dodging some frisky fresians in the process. My efforts were rewarded though as the birds were still present - distantly digiscopable in fading light. It was dark by the time I got back to the car - but I was happy with this latest addition to my Dorset list.