April...

I'm not sure I am going to get through this review of the year at this rate, so expect increasingly frequent and more badly drafted posts from this point on as I seek to catch up. The highlight of April 2016 for me was a family holiday in Scotland, in a divine cottage on the shores of Loch Creran. Divers, Tysties and Eiders from the garden made for a special location, and a bit of Scottish nightlife was on show too thanks to the moth trap. Despite some typically dreich weather, the birdlife in Oban Harbour provided plenty to photograph:

Black Guillemot, Oban Harbour: my photo, and bird, of the month for April

Iceland Gull, Oban Harbour

Hooded Crow, Oban Harbour

On returning from Scotland, spring migration was in full flow in Dorset - I was able to photograph an approachable Hoopoe, a more elusive Bluethroat and a positively coy Western Subalpine Warbler on the same memorable day on Portland:

Hoopoe, Portland

Western Subalpine Warbler, Portland

White-spotted Bluethroat, Portland

Closer to home spring also produced some good birds around Purbeck: Nightingales returning to their traditional breeding site on the Corfe Ridge, Hobbies hawking over Stoborough Heath and, one of the patch highlights of the year, a strikingly summer-plumaged Bar-tailed Godwit at Swineham.

Nightingale

Hobby, Stoborough Heath

Bar-tailed Godwit, Swineham

 

Migrants bremain on Portland

Hoping to see some migrant birds this weekend I weighed up the choice between flogging around what, for reasons of chronic neglect, I hesitate to call 'the patch', or heading to the sun-kissed heights of Portland. In the end I surprised myself by managing a bit of both thanks to a late evening walk around Swineham on Saturday and a day unusually free of other commitments on Sunday.

Predictably, Sunday on Portland was the more productive for both common and rarer migrant birds, though Swineham certainly held its end up, bless it, with a monster flock of hirundines, a few Willow Warblers and a couple of Sedge Warblers - not to mention a glorious sunset. I will return to those in a later post, and for now focus on the minor rarities which enlivened the visit to Portland - continental overshoots and a timely reminder that, whether you are thinking of voting for 'Brexit' or to 'Bremain', nature knows no boundaries.

Hoopoe - this long-staying bird at Suckthumb Quarry achieved celebrity in the local paper

It fed voraciously in front of an orderly line of photographers, perhaps finding them barely perceptible in their camouflage jackets lying against the white surface of the quarry floor

A more conventional view of the Hoopoe in profile - a very popular subject with birders, photographers and passing residents alike - and who can blame them

The Hoopoe is notoriously insecure - despite its great beauty it still tries too hard to look like a Peacock

The Hoopoe's grasp of the principles of 'hide and seek' is also a slim one

But if you've got it, flaunt it, I say

Another successful feeding foray - looks like a leatherjacket

A male Western Subalpine Warbler on the East Cliffs lacked the Hoopoe's exhibitionist tendencies

Its feeding habit of carefully picking insects from the Alexanders meant that it was often out of sight

Up there with the Hoopoe for its striking appearance was this White-spotted Bluethroat

It was feeding Wheatear-style in a ploughed field a short walk from the Subalpine Warbler

A glass half full

Well, it's been quite a week. Finding but failing to identify a rare bird has always been one of my worst nightmares - reputations being so fragile and all that, and the birding community seeming a bit unforgiving at times. But now it's happened, it's turned out to be, well, a pretty positive experience. In fact, as I write there is still a warmish glow which can't just be put down to the half-empty bottle of Badger in front of me.


Slightly eclipsed by the Northern Harrier on Monday, this smart but shy Garden Warbler was singing from deep cover by Portland Obs

Even I got this one: shorter hindclaw, pink base to a stouter bill, bold streaks fading to fine on the flanks and contrast between buffy breast and white belly makes this a Tree Pipit, not a Meadow. And it was in a tree. A hint of the light spot/dark spot face pattern of an OBP. Oh God, please don't tell me it is an OBP....

Finding a Northern Harrier on Monday (but not clocking its true identity - take a bow, Martin Cade) might not have done much for my reputation as a crack birder but it seems to have brought my scribblings via this medium to the attention of a wider audience. Some really generous comments on my finder's account - so a big thank you to all who made them. If you enjoyed that, scroll back far enough and you'll hopefully find more of the same, though admittedly in my posts the rare bird is usually gone by the time I arrive, and generally not found by me. Unless it's dead.

Willow Warbler was the most common migrant on Portland on Monday. Pale legs help differentiate it from Chiffchaff. Hmmm, Pale-legged and a Warbler. On a Leaf. Nope, it's not ringing any bells.

This Sparrowhawk was taking advantage of the influx of migrants on Barleycrates Lane on Monday. Those shins look rather sharp though, don't they...

Just when the interest seemed to have peaked, Birdguides pronounced the Northern Harrier the 'Bird of the Week' on Wednesday, producing another spike in the blog stats, the graph for which currently looks like a screenshot from a heart monitor on Casualty. Being the glass half-empty sort I was initially disappointed at not identifying the Harrier myself, but the level of interest has made me realise I was lucky to have anything to do with it at all, and that a share in the credit is more than enough, especially given the good company I get to share it with. I also started to wonder aloud what sort of photos I might have got five minutes earlier when I would have been on the cliff edge as it passed close by. Jol Mitchell, a glass half-full man (Arsenal fan, he has to be) pointed out that five minutes later and I would have seen nothing, which is a much better way to look at it.

So how come Steve Smith gets to find nice easy ones to identify like this Hoopoe? Photographed at Greenlands Farm, 24th April.

Ooh, ooh, I know this one: Linnet, Barleycrates Lane

Two things brought me back down to earth with a bump though. First was going back to work on Tuesday, not least because nobody had any inkling of just what a big deal it was for me. Actually that's not quite true - my colleague the excellent Dr Phil Sterling - whose book on micros will almost certainly be on the shelves of any moth aficionados out there - sort of understood. Though being an expert he's usually the one tutting at the schoolboy error made by some chump misidentifying something, so I'm not sure he could really relate. Second was the heated debate which kicked off in our local internet birding forum about art on nature reserves, which generated infinitely more comment than my potential County first. To paraphrase the fuse-lighter on that one, what the flip?


Black-eared Northern Wheatear, Greenlands Farm. Well it has got a black ear.

Yellow Wagtail, Greenlands Farm. Which sub-species? I think we've established that's not really my forte, don't you?

Anyway, having strung stretched the whole business out over two posts now, I am conscious of the risk of gripping the assiduous locals who put in the hours and would have been far more deserving finders of a Northern Harrier than yours truly. So I'll try to make sure this post is the last time I mention it, at least until the 'Review of the Year' comes along anyway.

After the excitement of Monday morning on Portland, it was off to Studland with the family for the afternoon. Even they enjoy seeing the local Ring-necked Parakeets, though this one was well camouflaged.

No identification conundrums here.

For the last word on the subject though, of particular interest to me was the number of people who said they liked the candour in my last post. Honesty is definitely in my top 10 list of virtues (see Bubo for the full list), so that was much appreciated. I'm pretty sure there is more doubt out there than people are prepared to let on sometimes, so if my freely admitting to not knowing something makes it easier for others to do so, then my work here is done. Hang on though: I described myself variously as clueless/halfwitted/etc so perhaps 'honest' wasn't a such complement after all...There I go again, glass half-empty. Better go and top it up again. Cheers!

Drive-by shooting

Birders often describe non-birders as 'members of the public', particularly when they suspect the member of the public in question doesn't know one end of a bird from the other. So when a Hoopoe was reported by a member of the public in Hamworthy, many assumed that a 'pinkish bird with crest' was a Jay or maybe a Waxwing at best. But after a couple of days of phantom sightings, some diligent cruising of the backstreets by some non-members of the public eventually produced an indisputable report complete with photo.

Suburban twitching throws up some weird street name combinations. The Hoopoe had been in Annet Close, so when I saw Samson Road I thought maybe the theme was the Isles of Scilly...

The next street was Goliath Road, so clearly not an Isles of Scilly theme. Herons perhaps?

Then it dawned on me: of course! The hits of Tom Jones!

 

Hamworthy is a large suburb of Poole, characterised by long circuitous avenues with myriad cul-de-sacs, and about a million lawns kept with varying degrees of fastidiousness. The Hoopoe seemed determined to visit them all, but none for very long, and ranged over a wide area. Other birders had made 5 or 6 visits and put up to 15 hours into seeing this bird without success - kerb-crawling in their own words - so I joined the effort on Saturday afternoon more in hope than expectation. After the best part of 3 hours aimless taxi-ing, I had drawn a blank.

Hoopoe was not the only bird on the lawns of Hamworthy. Redwing were also in the area.

During this time I was getting increasingly quizzical looks from the occupants of a police car whose beat I appeared to be following - we passed each other at least 4 times. Another birder, whose name I've withheld for legal reasons, was actually pulled over by them for suspected Hoopoe-bothering, but a flash of his Collins Guide saw him get off with a caution.



Another lawn, another bird. A Fieldfare this time.

 

Most reports of the Hoopoe had been from one of two main residential areas and, having searched both pretty comprehensively, my last throw of the dice was to try a smaller area between the two where I could not recall the bird being reported previously. It was a good move as I stumbled across it feeding on a front lawn next to the road. I got the news out quickly and despite reinforcements arriving within 10 minutes the bird had flown before anyone else could see it, making mine the only sighting yesterday as far as I am aware. Unless, of course, some 'members of the public' saw it. The car was the perfect hide in this situation, and I took some quick drive-by shots in the fading light. Fortunately the bird was present in the same area today allowing most of the locals to finally catch up with it.
 

The notorious Hamworthy Hoopoe - on the run, giving Dorset's finest the slip.

After no luck with all that Biblical Samson and Delilah Street nonsense, I eventually found the Hoopoe in the reassuringly rational vicinity of Dawkins Road

The bird seemed to be feeding well...

 

...but was present for just 5 minutes before flying off and wasn't seen again before dusk.

 

Earning a crest

The Bufflehead on the Fleet for the last few weeks has brought a lot of birders to the area around Langton Herring, myself included, for the first time. So, having satisfied the morbid curiousity of a 6 year old son to see the exhibition of recently excavated decapitated Vikings in Weymouth, news of a Hoopoe near Rodden Hive provided a good excuse to go back again. The approach to Rodden Hive from Langton Herring forces you to appreciate the majesty of the Fleet and Chesil Beach - even the grumpy 6 year old, less keen on birds than long-dead Scandanavians, enjoyed the view. He was rewarded with a tick shortly after as the Hoopoe flew for a few yards. I was able to get closer and take some reasonable digi-scoped images in poor light. The bird was quite approachable, often feeding on the coast path. A new bird for Dorset for me, and hopefully a sign of good things to come this spring. More images here.