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

 

And still they come...

As April turns into May, more migrant birds are returning from their wintering grounds. I caught up with some special ones over the long weekend, taking in a couple of sites on the southern shore of Poole Harbour, and sneaking in an early morning trip to Portland between some weekend work commitments - so not much time for text!

Hobby over Stoborough Heath - our only falcon to spend winter south of the Sahara. This one was engaged in a fruitless search for odonata on a bright but chilly day

A Nightingale returning to a traditional site on the Corfe Ridge - easily heard before it was seen. Geolocators are providing more accurate accounts of the migration route to Africa taken by the UK's Nightingales - see here

This Cuckoo was seen before it was heard on Stoborough Heath - a combination of satellite tracking and Springwatch has made minor celebrities out of several of these long distance migrants - see here

A male Kentish Plover at Ferrybridge was a bonus on returning from a relatively birdless Portland - sadly, no longer a breeding bird in the UK. Western European breeders winter in South West Europe

A continental White Wagtail at Portland Bill was the highlight of a twirl around the south of the island

Back at home, a 1st summer Little Gull brightened up a visit to Swineham on a dull Bank Holiday Monday

The first Swifts of the year had also arrived and were screaming over the gravel pits. This species wins the prize for the most epic migration featured in this post - see BTO website for details here. One bird fitted with a geolocator completed the final 5,000km leg of the journey back to the UK from West Africa in 5 days. Swift indeed.

 

Ticking over

If you had told me at the start of April that I could add Great Blue Heron and Hudsonian Godwit to my British list by the month's end I'd have taken it, but I would scarcely have believed it possible. While both these birds were an unexpected bonus, April was always going to be a good month for boosting the 2015 photo yearlist, folly that it is. I say folly on the basis that I was never going to get to an impressive, let alone a record breaking, tally. But having cruised past 150, 200 now looks eminently achievable. In fact, I would be disappointed not to get to this landmark; delighted to get to 250; and to reach 300, well, I would either have to be unemployed, or divorced, and probably both. So perhaps best not to aspire to that as a target...Anyway, after the veritable tick-fest which was the Somerset Levels on Saturday, Sunday was spent with the family, participating in the Great Dorset Beach Clean, followed by more leisurely pursuit of a few returning migrants around Purbeck:

Nightingale (#161)

Two Reed Warblers (#162) were singing close together in a small reedbed on Studland

After some verbal jousting, they came together and became locked in mortal combat

The bird on the left established its superiority, almost drowning the bird on the right

The dominant bird flew off, leaving this one battered - but still alive

Common Whitethroat (#163)

Oh, and a late one from Friday night: Black Redstart (#164) at Swineham - a patch tick (cheers Marcus) sandwiched between 2 lifers in successive weekends - not a bad spell!

New arrivals

Spring migrants continue to arrive - those that haven't been needlessly slain in Malta, that is - click here for details of the problem there and what you can do about it. If the Nightingales which return to Dorset to breed in small numbers every year follow a similar route to this one tagged with a geolocator a few years ago, they don't have to go through Malta, so that's at least one peril they don't have to face.

Nightingale

Nightingale

When I lived in Kent we had some healthy colonies nearby and competing males singing almost constantly throughout the day could be almost showy, particularly early in the breeding season. Not so in Dorset, where there are just a few small colonies, and where any view is a good view. An early start took me to one of the traditional sites where an unusually visible male had a melodic duel with a nearby rival.

Not quite the repertoire of a Nightingale, but always nice to hear Yellowhammer

Another male Yellowhammer

Garganey, our only summer visiting duck, is another migrant to get the pulse racing. So a report of three drakes on the patch at Swineham saw me hot-footing it down there last night in a race against the weather and the twilight, which I just about won. Fortunately they weren't on the distant floods which those who saw them insist on calling 'the Stilt pools' (grrr) but on the much closer ones next to the main path.

Female Blackcap

Male Bullfinch

Twitching this trio deprived me of the opportunity to sit poolside in 40 degree temperatures surrounded by the shrill echo of parental encouragement as various children, including my own, performed at a swimming gala. They did well, and while I was sad to dip out on that, I'm sure there will be other opportunities. There were not to be for the Garganey, which had moved on by the time I dragged my own little dabblers back down to Swineham this morning.

Stonechat are well into their breeding routine - this is the male

And this the female

Speaking of new arrivals, we had a couple ourselves today. Not human ones, I hasten to add - even I would have mentioned that higher up the post - para 2 at least. No, I have been under pressure to accede to getting a family pet for some time. I agreed to stick insects but these weren't cuddly enough apparently. A cat was clearly out of the question, and, having stepped in too many of their by-products over the years, so was a dog.

Garganey at Swineham

You wait for ages...

Fearing another veto, the rest of the family decided to not even consult me about the latest acquisitions - and so today arrived a pair of Guinea Pigs, donated by friends who presumably have enough to eat. At least they are quiet, don't need walking, keep the grass to a nice short sward and are sufficiently low maintenance to not get in the way of birding. Plus, being the long-haired variety, they look like they might come in handy when I get home from Swineham and my mud-caked wellies need a shine. In conclusion, about as tolerable as possessing a rodent could be. 

Raptors were also on the wing this weekend around Purbeck - Peregrine

A Buzzard was making off with some kind of rodent. Guinea Pig?

Whitethroat - many now back on territory

 

Dorset Nightingales

Although I have heard both Nightingale and Thrush Nightingale in Dorset before I haven't actually seen either, so headed to White Nothe this morning to look for the former. About 6 males were singing on arrival but it took a couple of hours of patient watching of the dense coastal scrub to actually see one (pictured distantly through heat haze). The local Yellowhammers were more obliging, posing against a background of gorse covered hillside.