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

 

Migrants bremain on Portland

Hoping to see some migrant birds this weekend I weighed up the choice between flogging around what, for reasons of chronic neglect, I hesitate to call 'the patch', or heading to the sun-kissed heights of Portland. In the end I surprised myself by managing a bit of both thanks to a late evening walk around Swineham on Saturday and a day unusually free of other commitments on Sunday.

Predictably, Sunday on Portland was the more productive for both common and rarer migrant birds, though Swineham certainly held its end up, bless it, with a monster flock of hirundines, a few Willow Warblers and a couple of Sedge Warblers - not to mention a glorious sunset. I will return to those in a later post, and for now focus on the minor rarities which enlivened the visit to Portland - continental overshoots and a timely reminder that, whether you are thinking of voting for 'Brexit' or to 'Bremain', nature knows no boundaries.

Hoopoe - this long-staying bird at Suckthumb Quarry achieved celebrity in the local paper

It fed voraciously in front of an orderly line of photographers, perhaps finding them barely perceptible in their camouflage jackets lying against the white surface of the quarry floor

A more conventional view of the Hoopoe in profile - a very popular subject with birders, photographers and passing residents alike - and who can blame them

The Hoopoe is notoriously insecure - despite its great beauty it still tries too hard to look like a Peacock

The Hoopoe's grasp of the principles of 'hide and seek' is also a slim one

But if you've got it, flaunt it, I say

Another successful feeding foray - looks like a leatherjacket

A male Western Subalpine Warbler on the East Cliffs lacked the Hoopoe's exhibitionist tendencies

Its feeding habit of carefully picking insects from the Alexanders meant that it was often out of sight

Up there with the Hoopoe for its striking appearance was this White-spotted Bluethroat

It was feeding Wheatear-style in a ploughed field a short walk from the Subalpine Warbler