A day out with the buoys

On the Saturday before last I took the boat to Brownsea for a rare winter landing trip. This is usually a great way to get close to waders in front of the hides, and in the days before Christmas, my old friend Hamish Murray, now Dorset Wildlife Trust's Conservation Officer, had been getting great photographs of the long-staying Stilt Sandpiper which had relocated there after extended stays at Lodmoor and Middlebere.

Great Northern Diver, Poole Park. Bonus points for naming the species of crab.

Great Northern Diver, Poole Park 

Unfortunately, on the day of my visit one of the pumps which manages the water levels had broken (pull your finger out, Hamish ;-), and the only waders on the unusually full lagoon were huddled way out on the islands in the middle. Compensation for this slight disappointment came in the form of plenty of good birds, a hunting Peregrine, the resident Red Squirrels and, best of all, the discovery of a Great Northern Diver crabbing the shallows in the unlikely location of Poole Park lake, which I had checked out before boarding the Brownsea boat. I was short of both time and light on that occasion, so I returned this Sunday for another look. It seemed that my luck had run out as park staff were collecting buoys from the Diver's favoured area, pushing it out to the centre of the lake.

Peregrine hunting on Brownsea lagoon, 6th June

Record shot of female Velvet Scoter south of Brownsea, 6th June

After scanning Holes Bay and finding it relatively empty, over a spot of lunch I decided on a change of scene and headed for Ferrybridge, a favourite area for birding at this time of year. I checked out Portland Harbour and photographed some distant Black-necked Grebes before heading for Chesil Cove, where Black Redstarts have proven photogenic in each of the last two winters. On arrival some passers-by suggested I look out for a whale or dolphin in the Cove which they had seen a few minutes earlier, and which they thought might be dragging a buoy from one of the many lobster pots in the area.

Red Squirrel, Brownsea Island

Red Fox, Holes Bay

I scanned the Cove and saw nothing, but looking further out I eventually picked up what looked like an orange buoy creating a bow wave as if being dragged through the water. Then at some considerable distance I saw a cetacean blow, and a small dorsal fin break the surface. It came up a couple more times and, bearing in mind my track record of not being able to identify things off the West Cliffs of Portland, I thought I had better take a photograph in the hope that would help.

Drake Wigeon, Holes Bay

Wigeon, Holes Bay

Within minutes a work colleague who volunteers for British Divers Marine Life Rescue arrived to follow up reports of a whale, suggesting that it had been seen by others before my arrival at the Cove. I checked my photos from which it was clearly a whale of some description while my colleague phoned an update to BDMLR based on what I had seen. We scanned some more but the whale did not resurface. I phoned Martin Cade at the Portland Bird Observatory to encourage him to keep a look out as the whale seemed to be heading broadly away from us and in the direction of the Bill. Sadly I did not see it again, and neither did Martin from a vantage point on the West Cliffs. By now the light was fading and I was still not quite sure what I had seen, but studying the photos through my inverted bins the shape of the dorsal fin started to remind me of the Humpback Whale I saw last February in Devon with Steve Smith. However, I lacked both the expertise and the reference material to be able to eliminate other species on the strength of that. On returning home and emailing the photos to various experts, however, my suspicions were confirmed when they positively identified it as a Humpback Whale.

Black-necked Grebe, Portland Harbour

Black-necked Grebe, Portland Harbour

With the identification confirmed, I posted some record shots on Twitter and, Twitter being Twitter, copped a bit of flack for not putting the news out sooner, based, I trust, on legitimate concern for the welfare of the whale. So for the record, I had the whale in view for just a few minutes, and within minutes of my sighting, BDMLR, who were exactly the people who needed to know about it should some kind of rescue mission be required, were on the scene having already heard the news from elsewhere. Given that the whale appeared to be heading strongly out to sea, and that the light was fading, there was not much more they or anyone else could have done to come to the whale's aid that afternoon.

Dark-bellied Brent Goose, Portland Harbour

Dark-bellied Brent Goose, Portland Harbour

I could perhaps, with hindsight, have got news out more quickly of a 'brief sighting of cetacean sp.' which, at that point, I could neither see nor identify - but if it's any comfort, anyone racing down to the Cove on the strength of that would have been disappointed. Anyway, let's hope it has freed itself and comes to no harm. There has been a lot of local media interest (best Q&A thus far - Interviewer: 'How big was it?'; me: 'Err, whale-sized?'.) and I asked the journalists I spoke to to give prominence to the marine conservation organisations like Marine Life and BDMLR who can give the best advice on reporting any future sightings. I am pleased to say most of them have done that thus far.

My distant record shot of the Humpback Whale - described (with some justification) by the breakfast DJ on Radio Solent as 'underwhelming' in photographic terms. A tad ungrateful though as I gave permission for him to use it on his website!

Black-tailed Godwit, Holes Bay

Winter highlights: part II

Spring migrants continue to trickle in and while it's not quite a flood, it's a reasonably safe call to declare winter as being over. A few more highlights to look back on then:

Short-eared Owl on Portland - one of a number of wintering birds

This one was flying up the west cliffs

Peregrine, also on Portland

Peregrine

Marsh Harriers have been entertaining visitors to Radipole Lake in Weymouth

A Great Grey Shrike spent much of the winter in Wareham Forest

A late winter arrival was this Snow Bunting on Studland Beach

Great Spotted Woodpecker, Arne

Sika Deer at Arne

Male Siskin at Arne

Female Siskin, Arne

Spoonbills - 5 of 7 at Arne yesterday

And to close, as if to personally declare winter over, the first Wheatear of the year, on Studland beach last weekend.

And finally...

This quick look back at December completes my series of posts reviewing 2016. Thanks for sticking with it - from the comments and texts urging me on recently, I got the impression that some of you didn't think I was going to make it. I could pretend it was all carefully planned to conclude as the sun sets for the last time on 2016, but that would be a lie. In fact, there was a point last week when I too thought I would never reach the end: it was, to borrow the sporting image of 2016, my Jonny Brownlee moment, and you, dear readers, were my Alistair, dragging me to the finishing line despite having much better things to do with your time.

2016 was of course a year of shock election results, famous folks' funerals and controversial rare birds. The evidence on climate change appeared stronger than ever but the peoples of the free world decided not to let the facts on this and several other matters of public debate get in the way of a good story, especially when it was being told by wealthy demagogues with their fingers crossed behind their backs. On those shock election results, I merely observe that just 27% of eligible Americans voted for Trump, and less than 38% of voting age Brits voted to leave the EU. Whatever you think of the results of both polls, this surely can't be taken as a sign that western democracy is in rude health. I recall fondly the ennobled billionaire tax-exile Lord Ashcroft tweeting after the US election and Brexit results that 'the elites' had lost touch with the people - how fortunate we are to have such down-to-earth meritocrats holding these damned elites to account.

Egrets: I've had a few - Dorset got in on the December Cattle Egret invasion, this bird being one of five with Little Egrets at Nottington

Corn Buntings were singing at Maiden Castle in the unseasonably warm weather of mid-December

 Corn Bunting, Maiden Castle

Much loved celebrities seemed to drop like flies in 2016 - or did they? My theory is that with a rising global population and the bar for celebrity being substantially lowered over time, there are just a larger number of them around to perish - so we'd better get used to more 'Sad death of tragic Brian off of Big Brother' type headlines in 2017. That said, there were some genuine mega-stars who left us during the year, and I had to smile at a recent suggestion on social media that Bowie had created a parallel universe and was in the process of populating it one by one with his own hand-picked choices. 

Marsh Harrier at Middlebere - from a visit early in the month



Little Egret, Middlebere: one of the few beneficiaries of our warming climate

Peregrine at Middlebere from the same visit

As for the controversial rarities, it started early in the year with the Dalmatian Pelican's tour of the south west, and ended with the Cotswolds Blue Rock Thrush. Establishing the provenance of a wide-ranging Lammergeier (not seen by me) and the wandering east coast Western Purple Swamphen (which I did see) was also potentially complicated by the influence of continental re-introduction schemes, even though neither were thought likely to be of captive stock.

A memorable December day saw me heading up to Derbyshire for a close encounter with a Dusky Thrush

Willow Tit at Carsington Water was a long overdue 'photo-tick' on the way back from the Dusky Thrush...

...as was the bonus of an Eastern Black Redstart in Tewkesbury on the way home - the first I had seen of this form and therefore my bird of the month for December

A quick attempt, then, to dish out some meaningless titles for 'whatsit of the year', an exercise fraught with danger not just due to fickle memory, but to the risk of implying that anything not mentioned wasn't fun or special - that would be nonsense, of course, but I'm afraid it's not going to stop me:

• Bird of the Year: it has to be the Siberian Accentor - the fact that it was part of a multiple occurrence of the species in Britain 'devalued' it for some, but for me it did the opposite, illustrating a genuine natural phenomenon and adding to its authenticity in a year which had more than its share of plastic controversy.
• Dorset Bird of the Year: Portland's Great Spotted Cuckoo was everything a rarity should be: big, beautiful and photogenic - and a county tick for me.
• Patch Bird of the Year: a very short shortlist due to a shameful lack of effort - but a self-found autumn Great White Egret claims the title, if stumbling across the birding equivalent of a Concorde in a haystack counts as 'self-found'.
• Twitch of the Year: it has to be the day trip with my son to St Mary's for the Cliff Swallow - though the Hebridean adventure for the Black-billed Cuckoo, the campervan sleepover for the Great Knot, the smash and grab for the Siberian Accentor and the Dusky Thrush/Eastern Black Redstart bonus ball day ran it a close second, third, fourth and fifth respectively. Not that I''m obsessed with lists, you understand.
• Photo of the Year: had to think about this one. But I love American waders, and I love photographing rare birds up close, so it's the second one from this series taken during an intimate encounter with the Hudsonian Whimbrel in Cornwall early in the year. 
• Dip of the year: I learnt long ago not to go too early with 'review of the year' posts and this year is no exception. I was looking forward to reporting 'no long distance dips' to speak of, when last week's Pembrokeshire trip failed to turn up the hoped for Masked Wagtail!
• The Donald Trump Award for services to climate chaos: having raised the spectre of climate change, I should reflect for a moment on my own carbon footprint: too much driving chasing all these birds around, obviously, but I managed more lift-sharing than usual in an A-rated car, and, apart from two short hops on crop sprayers to the Isles of Scilly, I never got on a proper plane or left the country by any other means in 2016. So not too bad relatively speaking, but certainly room for improvement. Mind you, given the state of sterling, not leaving the country may be less of a choice and more of a necessity in 2017!

The news in 2016 was full of talk of 'blue on blue' conflict, as leading Conservatives knocked lumps out of each other with their Polo hammers. This image of 'blue on blue' - the Blue Rock Thrush against the perfect sky of a cold December afternoon in Stow-on-the-Wold - presents, I feel, a more restful image, and one much less likely to have my Dad shouting at the telly. My photo of the month for December.

So, thanks to the various peregrinations chronicled in these pages in 2016, the number of birds I have seen in Britain according to the official list crept up from 452 at the start of the year to 458 by the end - not including the Swamphen, the Pelican and the Blue Rock Thrush, all suspended in listing purgatory pending consideration by the British Birds Rarities Committee. In statistical terms, therefore, whether or not 2016 can go down as a good or a very good year will in part depend on what these wise folk decide about the year's most controversial birds. The Swamphen should be fine, who knows with the other two. But in the final analysis, the numbers don't much matter: the birds, the butterflies and other interesting critters I saw this year took me to some inspiring places, in the company of some great people, and sometimes with just myself for company, in a search for natural beauty, solitude and fulfilment which undoubtedly kept me sane amid the madness of the modern world.

My thanks, then, to the wildlife, for still being there despite the best efforts of humanity to eradicate much of it; to my fellow travellers, for their companionship and for subjecting themselves to my incessant witterings en route; and to my family, for joining me when it was possible, and tolerating my absence without too much overt celebration when it wasn't. And finally thanks to all of you for reading. It appears that the review of the year by instalments idea was insufficient to avert one last mammoth post for the year, so my resolution for 2017 is a simple one: I'll knock that on the head next year. Assuming the fingers of President Trump's tiny hands haven't already punched in the nuclear codes by then of course. And on that cheerful note, may I wish you a Happy New Year!



Raptor round your finger

I've been up and down to Portland this week like the number 1 bus, chasing shadows mainly - specifically the shadows of a male Red-flanked Bluetail and a female Pine Bunting. Both of these major rarities were trapped at the Bill in recent days - see here for stunning photos of them wrapped around the fingers of Martin Cade - and while the chances of either sticking around seemed slim, with a few days off work this week it would have been rude not to head down in the hope of seeing them. In the end I saw neither but there were some photogenic fowl to be enjoyed nonetheless. Raptors put on a particularly fine display with six species seen. Photographic highlights below.

 

This female Hen Harrier has been around Portland Bill for over a week

I bumped into it on several occasions on recent visits

It was often mobbed by corvids - though gave as good as it got on this occasion

Against the sea off the Bill

Banking in response to another corvid attack

Rare to see this species so well...

...though difficult to photograph without the clutter of fence lines...

...gates...

...or vegetation in shot

Well that's almost artistic

Hen Harrier

This Buzzard was also attracting attention from corvids - here with a Raven 

Male Kestrel hanging in the breeze off the West Cliffs this morning

Kestrel

This Peregrine cast a bulky shadow

The classic flying anchor shape

This juvenile Peregrine has a colour-ring - will be interesting to see where that comes from

Finally form Portland a very distant record shot of a Merlin

 

Sparrowhawk was also on Portland though this one was photographed at Durlston earlier in the week

And to close the raptor theme, this Marsh Harrier was at Swineham before my visit was so rudely interrupted by news of a Pine Bunting on Portland!