Ton up!

I'm not sure what the run-rate for a 'good' photo year-list should be by the end of February, but I suspect 100 is well below it. Anyway, that's what I have reached and the honour of being the 100th species captured on film digital recording media falls to the Bohemian Waxwing. Naturally, I had to manipulate the order in which I notched up the ticks on my recent trip to East Anglia to bring up the hundred on such a glamorous species, but, let's be honest, it just wouldn't have been the same if it was a Skylark. We spent Friday night on the way back from Norfolk to Dorset in a budget motel at Barton Mills in Suffolk - conveniently close to Mildenhall where the Waxwing had spent much of the previous week. I was able to twitch it whilst the rest of the family were still doing their morning ablutions.

The Waxwing, a first winter bird, was feeding in prime Waxwing habitat - a modern suburban housing estate

That pesky twig spoilt an otherwise perfectly good photo - one step to the left or right and the bird would have been obscured by the vegetation in front of me (I was using a bush for cover) so there was no way around it. And Photoshop would be cheating.

As a first winter bird, the characteristic waxy red tips to the wing feathers, caused by the shafts extending beyond the barbs, could not be seen in the closed wing, but can just about be seen coming through here in the raised wing

So with that landmark chalked up, I am starting to wonder what I might get to by the year's end, whilst not being sufficiently committed or confident as yet to set a proper target. There is still significant potential for work and family commitments to scupper the whole project and leave me wishing/pretending I had never started it. For now, though, it is time to savour the milestone and admire the beauty of Bombycilla garrulous.

To rack up a really good score would require some of our more elusive and secretive species to perform for the camera. So having mobilised the rest of the family after twitching the Waxwing, I persuaded them that a trip to nearby Lynford Arboretum would be fun, more in hope than expectation that I might catch up with one of the Hawfinches that are seen there from time to time. Fortunately one had been staked out near a feeding station and was showing on and off to a small crowd of admirers. The photos were poor in view of the distance and low light but good enough to pass the 'identifiable' test.

I haven't seen Hawfinch (#108) for a few years so it was good to see one on the ground

This bird fed actively in the leaf litter

Check out that conk!

With two of the most desirable species on the British list in the bag there was time for a more leisurely stroll around the arboretum. A Brambling at the feeding station was a bonus and I was able to improve on the photos of Marsh Tit taken in the garden of our holiday cottage on the Suffolk coast earlier in the week.

Brambling (#109), Lynford Arboretum, Norfolk

Marsh Tit, Lynford Arboretum, Norfolk

Marsh Tit, Lynford Arboretum. Norfolk

Copper-headed Pre-teen, Lesser Blonde Chatterbox and Owl-headed Matriarch were three species I was not expecting to see at Lynford

So, not bad for what was supposed to be a travelling day, three potentially tricky species added to the year list and some quality time with the family (who spent the rest of the journey being totally uncommunicative and playing with handheld electronic devices). Oh go on then, one more of that twig.

Note how it is in perfect focus. The twig, I mean.

A van drove into my house today

Today, a van drove into my house. Not right in, you understand, it just scraped the wall, but I had to get your attention somehow. In his defence, it wasn't entirely the driver's fault, he was squeezing past a particularly poor example of the bad parking which sometimes afflicts the Saxon back-streets of old Wareham Town. While the parker in question was in the car at the time she just couldn't or wouldn't move, and it's not like there was a Waxwing on the wires or anything which would have made parking cock-eyed in the middle of a narrow road entirely understandable.

Waxwing (Poole, 2010): not on the wires outside my house today, but the first of several tenuous connections to birds in this ranty post about parking.

It is impossible to suggest to a neighbour in such a situation that they might have found a better place to park without sounding like a clipboard-wielding man from the council, so I don't usually bother. I made an exception today though on account of the bad parking having made a van drive into my house, and went with a factual appeal to self-interest: 'I'm just a bit worried that you wouldn't get a fire engine through there if your house was burning down'. She said she took my point about the fire engine but couldn't find anywhere else to park, thus proving she had not taken my point at all, and demonstrating the modern car driver's order of priorities in which 'convenient parking' ranks several places above 'the death of my extended family in a house fire'.


Sora (Attenborough, Notts, 2006). If I found one at Swineham, where would everbody park?

I've often wondered what would happen with parking in Wareham in the unlikely event of me finding a major rarity at Swineham and sparking a big twitch. It shouldn't be a problem, there being precisely 201 public car parking spaces and a fair amount of off-street if you can be bothered to walk a few hundred yards (any neighbours reading this, please note), and several spare pitches worth of space at the rugby club, who might not be averse to the income generating opportunity.


Little Gull (Swineham, 2012): one of the best birds I've found at Swineham in 18 months of regular watching. Parking wasn't a problem that day.

But back to the contretemps: having secured a moral victory in the fire engine debate I was happy to leave it at that, but she followed up with the not entirely rhetorical question 'where do you suggest I park?'. I resisted the temptation to say 'I'm sorry Madam but you seem to be confusing me with Wareham's Parking Czar, who might not only care about your problem, but be in a position to solve it'. When I moved in I promised myself that I wouldn't get upset by the bad parking which I could see even then would occur from time to time. And I honestly didn't, until, as I think I've mentioned, a van drove into my house.


Arctic Tern (Inner Farne, 2010): tenuous connection number four coming right up.

Now at the risk of getting a visit from Trading Standards for not having a high enough percentage bird content in a publication clearly entitled a 'Wildlife Blog', I should attempt another tenuous connection. Unlike me, my wife got upset about the parking long ago, so contacted the local council (we have three), who said contact the police, who said contact one of the other local councils, who had a meeting about it and said contact the remaining local council, who said they had spent their budget for dealing with idiotic parking this year but would give it serious consideration next year, though there could be no guarantees due to 20% budget cuts and a 30% rise in the incidence of idiots. OK they didn't say that but the chain of events is barely exaggerated. By the time she had gone round the houses with this I reckoned she'd travelled further than - here it comes - the average Arctic Tern on its annual migration.

Alpine Accentor (Pyrenees, 2006): old, imported Spanish bird photos in a so-called up-to-the-minute British wildlife blog? Somebody call Trading Standards! Bad parking could be forgiven for one of these.

Having got that off my chest, I can now return to more positive bird-related thoughts, like finding a mega at Swineham in spring. I look forward to seeing you there. But please, in the immortal words of Rare Bird Alert, park sensibly.

Scilly scarcities

Even during a quiet week for rare birds on the Isles of Scilly - and last week was by no means a classic - it's a place where you seem to get exceptional views of a range of scarcer species which would normally defy a close approach. Some may not be used to people, some may just be exhausted, but whatever the reason it makes for a rewarding experience for the photographer. In reverse order of proximity last week were:

Brambling - I flushed this bird from the coast path near Old Town Church so found a place to sit and waited.

Within a few minutes it returned to perch on the seawall and feed on the path again just yards away.

Several beaches on Tresco and St Mary's held 2 or 3 Black Redstarts last week.

The most confiding were this one just over the seawall at Porthcressa...

...and this one just over the seawall at New Grimbsy. Too close to focus at times.

Another confiding bird - a Snow Bunting at New Grimsby. Flushed by my 5-year old son when it strayed into his 'long jump pit' on the beach unfortunately.

 

The New Grimsby Snow Bunting was surpassed for boldness by this one at Rushy Bay on Bryher.

It hopped up to my eldest son George, let him stroke it and nuzzled into his hand. I managed not to get a photograph of this, as I was trying to prevent the other son from flushing it!

'Too close to focus' doesn't do it justice - this bird had me shuffling backwards in the sand to get it in the frame as it hopped towards me.

Shame about the light, but still some compensation for the absence of the Buff-bellied Pipit which had been present and showing very well on this beach the previous day.

These 1st winter Waxwings were feeding at ground level three feet beyond a garden gate in Porthcressa on our last full day on the islands.



I waited for them to perch up for these shots, and then tried to find an angle which eliminated messy window frames, gutters etc from the background. The perils of photographing Waxwings...

 

Closest of all though was this Firecrest. We just missed a Little Bunting being released by the same hand having been caught earlier in the same net, but this was the next best thing.

You still 'ere?

No sound of yesterday's Nightingale or sign of Garganey at Upton Country Park this morning, but nearby at Hatch Pond fourteen Waxwing were still present. Lucky workers at Poole Council offices in Stinsford Road have been able to admire these birds in the alders outside their office window, but today the birds were commuting between a birch tree and this berry-bearing hedgerow.

They eventually headed off to the west, presumably in search of a supermarket car park or industrial estate somewhere else. Not sure how many are left in the country but it doesn't sound like there are that many left.

Interesting how faithful they have been to this area for so much of the winter and early spring, and how the numbers at the same site seem to fluctuate as birds come and go.

More of the Poole Waxwings

Taste the difference...

I was at a Pantomime with the kids yesterday afternoon in Bournemouth when the first flock of Waxwings to reach Poole this winter arrived. They were first reported at a Sainsbury's just 5 minutes walk from my house and not far from the school which my sons attend. ''Behind you' indeed. But a day off today meant that I could take my eldest son to school and look for the birds on the way. Grandad was visiting as well and managed to locate the Waxwing flock just outside the playground - 38 birds in total.

This was a tick for two of the three generations present, and the first time I had seen Waxwing in Dorset as well. The light improved later in the day so Christmas shopping was combined with another trip to Sainsbury's to watch the Waxwings making light work of the local berry crop. Shoppers joined birders in admiring the flock, which seemed to contain more juveniles than adults. The birds never settled on the lower berries for long, but long enough to enjoy some excellent views and the jingling calls.

Invasion of the berry-snatchers

This year's Waxwing invasion has yet to reach Dorset (apart from a singleton reported from Studland last weekend), so a flock within striking distance of Littleborough's Pied-billed Grebe (see previous post) had to be checked out.

These were aspirational Waxwings, frequenting a suburban garden in Chorley, rather than the traditional supermarket car park, but while they co-operated, the weather did not. Apart from when one bird flew past a sliver of blue sky, it remained stubbornly grey and overcast throughout the time I was there, and when the birds were eventually flushed by a Collared Dove I began the long journey home. Hopefully they will continue to disperse and pilfer berries for many weeks to come.