A rush of blood

I was out of county on Saturday on family business when two parties of Stone Curlews turned up on the West Dorset coast, and while I expected them to move on overnight, Sunday morning provided a slim chance to get this species on my Dorset list. I went for the pair at West Bexington which had shown well the previous evening, and eventually saw them in a stubble field with the help of the finder Alan Barrett and his fellow patch watcher Mike Morse. The birds were quite distant, but Mike had managed to check a colour ring combination which later revealed that at least one of them bred in neighbouring Wiltshire.

Skylark, Aust Warth

The plan for the rest of the day was to catch up with some other locally rare and scarce birds: Garganey at Radipole, Spoonbill at Lodmoor and Great Grey Shrike at Morden Bog. But then the pager reported a Killdeer in Lancashire. It is one of the iron laws of nature that a good bird will turn up just after my holiday comes to an end, but I thought I might have the jump on this one: it was just before 1100, and I reckoned I could be at the Killdeer site by 1530. Maps and crisp packets, along with reason and judgement, were swept off the dashboard and replaced with a satnav, which I set for Longridge and headed north.

Distant Stone Curlews at West Bexington, Dorset

A while later the pager reported that the bird had flown, but I ploughed on, and half an hour later it was back. I found myself uttering an involuntary 'Come on!'. Another half an hour and it was gone again, so it was clearly not a settled individual. At times like this, decisive action is required, so I pulled into the services on the M5 to procrastinate.

Short-eared Owl, Aust Warth

This second negative report saw my adrenaline levels plummet, the rush slowed and after a reflective cup of coffee I concluded that I might as well dip on Twite at nearby Aust Warth and save a tank of fuel as dip on Killdeer in Lancashire. So dip on Twite I did, and for a couple of hours. It was still a good decision as the Killdeer was not seen again all day, and at least there were Short-eared Owls to enjoy at Aust.

Shoveler, Ham Wall RSPB, Somerset

So with two sets of plans for the day not quite coming off, it was time for plan C: return home via the Somerset levels and try to photograph the long-staying Pied-billed Grebe. This was a bit more successful - the bird came quite close, albeit in poor light.


Pied-billed Grebe, Ham Wall RSPB, Somerset

More impressively, it repeatedly gave its distinctive call, a resonant yodel, puffing out a throat sac which seemed to double the thickness of its neck in the process.

The Pied-billed Grebe puffing its throat out and giving a haunting call

If the Little Bitterns return to breed on neighbouring Loxton Marsh this spring, you might be able to hear their distant dog-like booming at the same time as a Pied-billed Grebe calling - a collectors item for the sound recordists out there.

When wary, the Grebe would lie low in the water and not dive but submerge like a submarine with the body held horizontal - an interesting bit of behaviour

The penalty for all this tarting around was to miss a Red-throated Diver, one of my favourite birds, at home on Swineham Gravel Pits. While still present yesterday afternoon, it had gone by the time I got there at dusk, though a Barn Owl, a Marsh Harrier and a ringtail Hen Harrier were some consolation.

Me and the 'Peat Moor' centre on the Somerset Levels: made for each other

And so it was back to work today, secure in the knowledge that a full diary and an even fuller in-tray will prevent any further rushes of blood to the head, at least until the weekend.

Reminisce with a list

It's been a frustrating week with continuing back problems preventing me doing pretty much anything on the birding front. With a slight improvement yesterday, and with driving easier than walking, I twitched the Pied-billed Grebe in neighbouring Somerset. The journey there was fine but, having seen the bird, something else in a hitherto OK bit of back went ping, and I literally limped home to spend the rest of the day in bed, where I remain as I write this.

 

So rather than dwell on the things I haven't seen this week, I thought I would cheer myself up by focusing on the things I have seen over the years. And what better way to do it than that tried and tested birding format: the list. Today's list is my top five long-distance twitches. Most of these birds were photographed pretty poorly (click the links below for proof) before I bought a decent camera, so rather than inflict grainy sepia pictures on you, the war stories are broken up with some of my favourite rarity photos from the last decade. Two lists for the price of one, you lucky things.

American Robin, Grimsby (Jan 2004). A trip from Kent with Matt Jones. Of about a million digiscoped shots, this was the only sharp one.

1. Black-Browed-Albatross, Sula Sgeir, May 2007. I started birding in the late 1990s so had never seen the long-staying Albatross at the Hermaness Gannetry. So when one was located on Sula Sgeir, and Dick Filby organised a series of three boat trips to look for it the following year, we booked on the first one available. Probably my most expensive twitch ever, I think Matt Jones and I paid £300 for a berth on the Professor Multanovsky to sail overnight toward this rocky outcrop in the Atlantic. As the boat steamed out of Ullapool on a chilly evening Matt said, 'what are we doing? We've spent a fortune to twitch a bird that hasn't been seen for nearly a year'. Fortunately it was still there. Four species of Skua plus White-tailed Eagle from the boat capped the trip off nicely.

Pied-billed Grebe, Hollingworth Lake (Nov 2010). Not as Pied-billed as the recent Somerset bird of the same species, but pretty special anyway. This bird swam just yards in front of a hide I was sitting in.

2. Harlequin Duck, Lewis, April 2004. Another trip with Matt as we made a week of it in Scotland. Apart from the occasional chopper to the Isles of Scilly, this was the only time in the last 10 years that I have broken a self-imposed flying ban, going short-haul from Glasgow to Stornoway before hiring a car and heading for Grais where the Harlequin Duck was last seen. We overshot the spot but after some high speed reversing were soon enjoying views of this mega-rarity. American Herring Gull in Stornoway Harbour and enough Iceland Gulls to fill a freezer were a bonus.

White-billed Diver, Cornwall (March 2007). If this picture looks a bit like I was stood over the bird, that's because I was. It swam under a footbridge up a creek off the Hayle Estuary. We saw this, a Franklin's Gull, a Spotted Sandpiper and a Yellow-browed Warbler all within a couple of hours of watching a Gyr Falcon leave the roost at Stepper Point.

3. Snowy Egret, Balvicar, April 2002. The first time I saw this bird was in Ardeer, on the way back from a winter trip to Islay in 2001, but it was such a long-stayer that I caught up with it the following April back at Balvicar. An epic day started at Loch Garten with Capercaillie and Osprey, continued with Black Grouse at Loch Laggan and a King Eider at Dunstaffnage before seeing the Egret mid-morning, then back east for a Red-breasted Goose near Kinross, a couple of Surf Scoter in Fife and a Waxwing flock in Dunfermline before dusk.



Red-flanked Bluetail, St Martin's (Oct 2010). Not such a major rarity these days but still a stunning bird.

4. Masked Shrike, Kilrenny, Nov 2004. Probably my longest day-trip to date, 1000 miles on the clock exactly, for the ultimate solo smash and grab. I left Kent at 0200, crossed the border just after 0700, saw the bird about 0930, headed for home about 1100 and was back in time to put my son in the bath that evening. Apart from getting out of the car to see the bird, I stopped only once, at Gretna services, to fill up and, more importantly, to twitch some Waxwings by the petrol pumps.

Desert Wheatears are often confiding. This one on Cooden Beach, East Sussex (Nov 2006) was no exception.

5. White-tailed Plover, Caerlaverock, June 2007. Matt and I finished work and drove through the night to be on site for first light with several hundred others. We were packed into the Tower Hide like Russian dissidents on the train to the Gulags, the waking dead nodding off on each others shoulders. I still have flashbacks. Then dawn broke, and we watched thick fog for the next four hours. When it eventually cleared it was obvious that the Plover had moved on. To top it all off, the car broke down. Unsuccessful, but still epic, and every list of top twitches should include a spectacular dip, I reckon.

Sandhill Crane, Suffolk (Oct 2011). Not the best photo but a great trip with Steve Smith and Jol Mitchell.

There, I feel better already. More of these trips down memory may follow, depending on how quickly the back mends...

Green Heron, Lost Gardens of Heligan, Cornwall (Oct 2010).

Ring Bill Grebe

Mid-November and the Americans are still coming - the Pied-Billed Grebe near Littleborough being the latest. I saw one near Ashford in my then home county of Kent in 1999, so this would be a 'Millenium tick'. More seriously, getting some good images of one of only about 40 species that I have seen but not photographed, tempted me into the early start and an unusually long drive -the furthest I have travelled for any rarity this year. I had the excellent company of Anthony (and Mrs) McGeehan for the journey - not in person, of course, just the CD's from the highly recommended Birding from the Hip anthology - very witty musings punctuated by well chosen bird recordings. Mrs McGeehan's mis-transcribed phone messages for Anthony - 'Ring Bill Gull in Belmullet' - are among the highlights.

While there were plenty of birders around this morning, there were also plenty of places from where the bird could be seen. By a stroke of luck I happened to be standing by the best of them, the tiny, pad-locked 4 man hide, when a ranger-type turned up with the key. After 5 minutes inside, the Grebe swam directly in front of the open window. Bright weather had dominated north of Birmingham, but a light mist hung over Hollingworth Lake and the light was far from ideal for photography. Despite this drawback, I could not fail to get some satisfactory images as the bird cruised past just feet away. I would have stayed longer but thought I should move for others to get in the hide, but despite the crowd on the path outside there weren't many takers - a real contrast to the testy queues waiting to see last weekend's American Bittern.

If you can hold your nerve, there's a lot to be said for Sunday twitching, especially it is the first weekend a bird has been present: the crowds (and tensions) from Saturday have dissipated, the traffic is lighter, and the punters always seem more a bit more relaxed - 'communicating to share, not to impress', as McGeehan says about American birders.