Events take an inelegant turn

The bitter experience of recent years should have taught me that three things are guaranteed to bring inconveniently timed news of a rare bird: my wife's 'birthday weekend'; a trip to Brownsea; and the arrival of visitors at our house.

The Elegant Tern wing-stretching at Church Norton - apologies for all photos which are badly affected by extreme distance and heat haze!

To illustrate this, on my wife's birthday weekend a few years ago we went west to Devon, only to find that a Black-eared Wheatear turned up in the New Forest just to the east of home. I still haven't seen one. Trips to Brownsea over the years have provoked sightings of White-throated Sparrow in Hampshire and Semipalmated Sandpiper elsewhere in Dorset - though I managed to catch up with both eventually. And I have lost count of the number of rarities which have frustratingly appeared whilst we have been entertaining friends or family.

The Elegant Tern in flight with the smaller Sandwich Tern - the rings on the legs can be seen here

Mid-June often produces something hideously rare, so it was with an air of foreboding that I agreed to visit Brownsea yesterday, just before Claire's birthday, in the company of visiting friends from Cornwall: the full hat-trick of compromising circumstances. Inevitably, within hours of our arrival, events took an inelegant turn when new broke of, well, an Elegant Tern. This bird had a made couple of fitful appearances in Hampshire during the course of last week, but had just been re-found amongst the tern colony at Church Norton in Pagham Harbour.

The Elegant Tern in flight showed a dark wedge in the primaries and a hint of a dark secondary bar

We were due to meet another friend who is visiting from Australia for an evening meal in Poole and I knew that this gathering really could not be missed without grave consequences. With luck and a fair wind, however, I calculated that I could get to Church Norton and back to Poole in good time for the dinner. But only if I left immediately.

A view of the underside of the wing

To cut a brief, tense exchange littered with sub-text even shorter, permission was reluctantly granted for me to perform this act of caddish abandonment. In mitigation, I had been pressing Claire hard for confirmation of whether this was in fact her 'birthday weekend' - it's a movable feast, you see (well, movable by her anyway) and I know that the official birthday weekend when it eventually falls involves a strict 'no-twitching' curfew. Fortunately, she had confirmed earlier that morning that this was not in fact the official 'birthday weekend'. I had therefore given notice of the possibility that the Elegant Tern would reappear, requiring my undivided attention.

Elegant Tern shows a white rump (the similar Lesser Crested Tern has a grey rump)

In further mitigation, the friends from Cornwall visited us as recently as May (ignoring my advice to avoid visiting me in May) and were staying with us primarily to see the mutual friend from Australia. With impeccable twitcher's logic I rationalised that we were really just therefore providing accommodation, so this was a 'secondary' visit, from which absconding was morally justifiable. Several of the well adjusted chaps I got chatting to at Church Norton agreed, though, on reflection, perhaps the ones who had abandoned children's birthday parties, weddings and funerals to see the Elegant Tern are not the best benchmarks of social acceptability...

This photo gives some impression of the extreme length of the Elegant Tern's orange bill

Anyway, the journey to Pagham Harbour was not going to be easy, as to get to Brownsea we had driven to Studland, parked there and taken the foot ferry over to Sandbanks before boarding the yellow boat to the island. I had to complete this journey in reverse before crossing the mouth of Poole Harbour for the third time of the day and being on my way to Sussex.

The Elegant Tern was dropping in with the breeding terns - others of this species have hybridised with Sandwich Terns in French and Spanish breeding colonies

The boat leaving Brownsea was delayed waiting for a massive Condor ferry to pass through the harbour mouth, so I just missed the Sandbanks Ferry back to Studland. They run every 20 minutes, so I caught the next one and sprinted to the car to try to make the return journey on the same ferry - I was successful, but needn't have rushed as it sat there for 15 tortuous minutes longer than usual, apparently waiting for a large freighter to enter the harbour, before trundling north towards Sandbanks.

Four species of Tern in this photo - Elegant (top left), Little (barely visible bottom left), Sandwich (to the right of the Little Tern) and Common Tern (top right)

With the fifth boat journey of the day complete, I hit the road proper. Traffic was mercifully light, and, on the advice of Steve Smith, who was about 20 minutes ahead of me, I gambled on finding a parking space near Church Norton, thus avoiding what would otherwise have been a long walk from Sidlesham Ferry Pool. I was successful, and as I headed for the edge of Pagham Harbour where the Tern had been seen, James Lowen passed me still in his car, also hunting down a convenient parking place. At this point there had been no sign of the Tern for over an hour. We both feared it had gone back out to sea but I told him where to park and headed off to catch up with Steve in any case.

One of my better flight shots of the Elegant Tern - against not terribly stiff competition!

I would be on a deadline, and calculated that I had until 1630 before I needed to head back to Poole for dinner. It was now 1445. 'This has 'dip' written all over it' I thought as I approached the line of birders scanning the tern colony. When I was three paces behind them, I recognised Barry Wright from Kent and heard him say 'there it is, it's just appeared on the spit'. And there it was, on the spit. Too easy! I scoped it, snapped it and phoned James to chivvy him along in case the flighty Tern did another bunk. A couple of expletives later he was behind me, fumbling with scope and camera as I had minutes before. After some good scope views and bad photos, I headed off and was back in Poole in good time for the evening celebrations.

A Little Tern gave a close fly-past at Church Norton

Any large, orange-billed tern in the UK is a serious rarity, but they can be notoriously difficult to identify. Fortunately, the Church Norton bird had been colour-ringed and DNA tested when it hooked up with a tern colony in France, so there could be no doubt about its identity on this occasion. A truly remarkable record, as Elegant Tern comes from the Pacific coast of California and Mexico. I was fortunate that it chose Church Norton to appear, as with the exception of Brownsea, there are not that many large tern colonies close enough to enable me to get to see it in the time I had available.

Little Tern hovering before a dive

Wacky races

On Sunday last Steve Smith and I formed a two-man team to take part in a Poole Harbour bird race (read the official, totally ungloating write-up by a member of the winning team here). This was my first summer one since moving to Dorset in 2007 and while we made a respectable total of 114 species heard or seen between 0430 and 1900, when we met up with the other teams for a social, this was still only enough to earn us joint 4th place (out of 8). So where did it all go wrong? 

We saw three Osprey on the bird race, this one nearly took our heads off as it flew low over Brands Bay

Wryneck at Greenlands: bird of the day by common consent, and #217 on the photo yearlist

Steve obviously blames me for dawdling (momentarily, I should add) to add a few species to my photo yearlist as we went. Birdracers who take themselves far too seriously would not have allowed a camera to even be taken, let alone used, he pointed out. I obviously blame Steve for dawdling (momentarily, he would say) in the hope of adding Wryneck to his patch list for the year. He managed it, but only, I would argue, because I dawdled to add to my photo year list at Greenlands just long enough to give the Wryneck time to reappear.

Whinchat at Greenlands (#218)

Redstarts at Greenlands - two of about a dozen seen in the area on bird race day

We started well enough, bagging Tawny Owl and Nightjar in the dark, adding waders and terns at Pilot's Point at dawn and collecting most of the regular migrants at various hotspots of the Studland peninsular by mid-morning, before heading off to Brownsea over lunch. This was a good decision as it produced our only Spoonbill, Little Tern, Spotshank, Knot and Barwit of the day.

Spotted Flycatcher - five were in the same tree at Greenlands

Willow Warbler - in with a loose flock of Stonechat, Whinchat, Spot Fly and Redstart at Greenlands

The afternoon then became increasingly fraught as we realised we were going to have to dip on some potentially fruitful sites, and pay flying visits to others where it would have been preferable to linger. Hence not seeing the almost guaranteed Yellow-legged Gulls at Middlebere or a recently reliable family of Woodlark at Soldiers Road.


Wheatear - another Greenlands tick for the day

Yellow Wagtail - one of a flock of 20 on Ballard Down - thanks to Steve for the loan of his SX50 to take this, #219 for the photo yearlist. And yes, that is allowed - photographer has to be me, kit can be anyone's.

In the hardest choice of all, as we made our way clockwise around the harbour in the late afternoon, my own patch of Swineham was jettisoned in favour of Lytchett Bay, a treachery of which I remain thoroughly ashamed. Swallowing our pride and holding our noses we headed for this most inhospitable of sites, only to find it adorned with welcoming signs, well-positioned viewpoints, and, worst of all, wheeling flocks of waders over acres of muddy pools. The only thing missing was a visiting RSPB group carrying foil-wrapped sandwiches, a flask of weak lemon drink and a packet of bourbon biscuits, asking us if the local Oystercatchers were in fact Black Storks. Certainly not the Lytchett Bay I remember from our last bird race: they've really let the place go. But with 4 species added in less than 4 minutes of viewing, I have to concede it provided pretty good value for money.

Believe it or Knot, a photo year-tick (#220) on Brownsea

I thought I had missed Little Tern for the photo yearlist having driven past the colony at Ferrybridge several times without managing to stop - so this one on Brownsea was a bonus (#221)

The Wryneck was an undoubted highlight of the day and was seen by less than half of the teams - not even the winning team saw it with their record-breaking total of 130. Comparison of their list and ours, however, shows where we really slipped up. We did OK with quite a lot of scarcer or unpredictable species which can catch you out on a bird race - as well as the Wryneck, we added Marsh Tit, Lesser Whitethroat, Grey and Yellow Wagtail to the day list. But we failed to see several commoner birds like Mistle Thrush, Skylark and Lesser Black-backed Gull. Time pressure also cost us - taking in Swineham would probably have added Little Grebe, Gadwall, Cetti's Warbler, Tufted Duck and maybe Marsh Harrier, birds which remained conspicuous by their absence from our list at the close of hostilities. The winners, by contrast, saw just about everything you could hope to see with the right combination of good planning, good luck and a handful of time-saving parking violations (not that we're bitter).

And in an overdue return of the 'terrible photos of tiny waders' feature on this blog, here's a Little Stint (#222) at the Bay which shall not be named.

Continuing the terrible photos of tiny waders theme, Ruff (#223) was also at Lytchett, though this one was photographed at Middlebere as the ones at the Bay were too distant. It's not that good. 

As with our winter birdrace a few years ago, I made it through the day only by grazing constantly, barely surviving on the paltry ration of a cheese baguette, four doughnuts, three packets of crisps, two each of apple and satsuma, a Mars bar and a multi-pack of Jacobs Orange Club - not as much as it sounds due to the pervasive pressure of shrinkflation. Steve, by contrast, would have got by on half a cheese and onion pasty had it not been for the doughnut donated by yours truly. With so many birders up early in the field and snacking unhealthily, some care had to be taken with the 'heard only' rule due to the similarly between the call of the Little Bustard and the sound of distant flatulence carrying on the thin morning air. The risk of confusion, however, substantially reduced by the absence of Marcus this year.

Unless it was tinnitus, I was hearing Green Sandpiper all day, but Steve just couldn't tune in to them. Then 4 flew over Middlebere together and he couldn't fail to tick them. This one was photographed at the same site earlier in the week.

Spoonbill - so far I have a 100% record with this species on my Dorset birdraces. 15 were on Brownsea.

All the while Poole Harbour distinguished itself with its incredible birdlife and habitats. Migrants seemed to drip from the branches, and my attempts to immortalise them on film were constantly photo-bombed by the normally elusive Sparrowhawk (we saw five). Numbers of Spotted Flycatchers were such that it's a wonder there are any flies left. And we pretty much had to beat our way through flocks of Ospreys, removing their talons from our binoculars one by one and telling them to back the hell off so we could fit them in the frames of our cameras. The day total of 136 species seen by the teams collectively tells you all you need to know about the diversity of birdlife on offer in Dorset in early autumn. The event was organised by Shaun Robson with the skill which can only be honed by half a lifetime in local government, so a big shout out, as they say on the wireless, to him for taking the initiative, and to the other participants for making the day such a success.

More holiday snaps

Having a lovely time in Cornwall blah blah weather has been fine blah blah spent most days on the beach blah blah, the usual postcard drivel, so here's some photos. 

My first Wheatears of the year were seen last week at Marazion

Several males were along the seafront and on the coastal defences

And just the one female

I spent a few hours checking Mount's Bay for a 1st winter drake Surf Scoter and eventually caught up with it from the sea wall in Penzance

This shot shows the diagnostic white patch on the back of the neck and cocked tail

And here showing the pale belly of a first winter bird

A Little Tern was also fishing in the shallows in Mount's Bay

Raven, St Michael's Mount

Rock Pipit, Mount's Bay

Choughs are becoming easier to see around the Cornish coast these days

This one flew over us as we walked the South West Coast Path

A few Whimbrel were seen on migration

An old friend hoves into view off Mousehole

Meadow Pipit enjoying the sunshine

Sparrowhawk hunting at Porthgwarra

At my age, I need a little help with birdspotting. Rowan at Porthgwarra.

Chiffchaff, Tintagel

Fulmar, Tintagel

Our last day in Cornwall was spent at Tintagel.

We spent the previous week telling the children that this was the citadel of Arthurian legend, and how we would find out about the round table, Arthur's exploits and those of his sidekick Merlin. Just about every interpretation board erected by English Heritage pointed out how it was unlikely Arthur ever went there, even if he existed. Which was doubtful. So that rather p***ed on our bonfire.






The audacity of hope. And some sand.

If you don't know the history of the Ferrybridge Little Tern colony in Dorset, it's a long and chequered one, which lurches between tragedy and triumph - but mostly tragedy. Cared for by diligent wardens, committed volunteers and dogged conservation bodies since the 1970s, the colony looked on its last legs at the end of the last decade, plummeting from 100 breeding pairs in 1999 to 10 in 2009.

Adult Little Tern in flight - often heard before seen

Adult Little Tern

Bad weather, predation and disturbance all contributed to the decline, and substantial amounts of time and money were thrown at the problem to the extent that the price per productive egg in some years would have made a Fabergé one look a bargain.

Juvenile Little Tern

The parent bird was constantly back and forth with fish for this one, so good to see that food didn't appear in short supply either 

I had the pleasure of sitting on a grant-giving panel locally, and every year an application would come in for more cash to ensure the sustainability of the colony. It didn't seem to be helping, so much so that some less bird-friendly members of the panel started wondering aloud if these avian scroungers weren't just a bit too welfare dependent. But at the risk of sounding like Barack Obama, (or, to raise the piety level a notch further, the RSPB), you can't put a price on hope, and the years of investment, dedication and experimentation seem to be paying off: breeding pairs were up this year to 25.

Juvenile Little Tern having a scratch

This young Little Tern was rapidly heading for 1st winter plumage

Better still, over 30 chicks got away this summer, as many as in all of the last three years put together. The success has been attributed in large part to the strategic placement of little piles of sand in hanging basket liners for the birds to nest on. This keeps the eggs a bit warmer than they otherwise would be on the chilly pebbles of Chesil Beach. Simple, but effective.

Adult Little Tern in flight

Ringing recoveries show that 'our' Little Terns winter in West Africa.

So with this jolly post as my tribute to the Terns and their guardians I think I've pretty much cleared the backlog from a trigger happy August. These pictures, taken one sunny evening last month, are now so old that their subjects are probably half way to west Africa by now. They should be there by October. Let's hope they arrive safely, and come back next year.