August & September.

Well nothing to report from August I don' think so that's that month out the way.
September - The first new addition to my UK list this autumn came on the 8th when at Lodmoor in Dorset, the juv Short Billed Dowitcher was spied. A Monarch Flutterby was also witnessed, stomping around on some flowering bush at Portland.

Azorean Photo shoot...

The 15th saw me, Archer, Snapper, Smythers & ShakerMaker down saaaff. We were at Rainham Marshes in London, locked in a box that overlooked some reeds and would not be allowed to leave until we saw our target. Thankfully, after 6.5hrs of waiting, the juv Baillons Crake eventually decided to creep about on show for c25 seconds. Nice. The highlight of the trip however was a stunning Lancaster Bomber that did a bit of a fly-by as we were casually traipsing aroud the reserve.

Some folk just ain't got the staying power!

Snapper celebrates the Baillons with a fat sandwich.

Da Bomb!

 

Smythers, I, Snapper & Archer

The final episode for September involved a day out at Spurn on the 23rd. Despite a decent fall of migrants the previous day and the weather looking good for more of the same, it was actually piss poor. The only bits of slight interest were a Yellow-browed Wblr, Redstart and an adult Long-tailed Skua. Shite!

Birdwatcherwatching

Cuba 2012 - Part two

So, we'd arrived.
After the usual nonsense regarding booking in to the resort, sorting luggage and a rather lengthy mooch about waiting for a new room to be allocated to us (the one we had last year and had requested was now not available) we were eventually transported to our accommodation around 7pm. Unlike last year, we were given a first floor apartment and has returning guests, who were getting married, a bottle of champers & a cool bottle of Havana Club rum! After having a quick snoop around the room, I strode on to the balcony to overlook my empire for two weeks. Sadly, we were not situated on the edge of the resort, instead we were about 200 yards away from the surrounding habitat with a layer of apartments between us and the scrub.

The view from the balcony on that first night. The closest tree on the right held a surprise...

Leaving the wife-to-be to unpack the gear, I popped open the bottle of champagne and had half an hours posh birding. My notebook claims I saw Greater Antillean Grackle, Cuban Blackbird, House Sparrow, Turkey Vulture, Yellow faced Grassquit, Cuban Emerald, Northern Mockingbird, Red-legged Thrush, Gray Kingbird and a strange blob in that tree! Thru bins I knew what it was so I wapped the scope on it and Ka-Boom! Now although I'd seen loads of Antillean Nighthawks last year, I'd not seen one like this -

This creature roosted on the same bit of branch daily for the duration of our stay. A second bird was also discovered roosting in another tree to the right of this.


Start 'um young eh! A young Nighthawk spotter!

Our first full day (26th) dawned hot and humid. Heavy rain and thick cloud wasn't exactly Caribbean but the birds definitely were. As well as the stuff seen on the first night, additions in the morning included Western Spindalis (Stripe-headed Tanager) and a stunning male Cape May Warbler (in The Nighthawk Tree).

Western Spindalis (or Cabrero if you're Cuban). 

Cape May Warbler - YES!!

Later in the afternoon, after a meeting with 'The Wedding Organiser', the three of us (Lisa, my bins & I) went for a romantic stroll along the beach to a very romantic area that I had discovered last year. It just happens that this lovely spot is also good for birds but she wasn't to know that. In little over 45 minutes 'we' notched up 3+ Oriente Warblers, 2 Blackpolls, Palm Warbler, Black 'n' White Warbler, Yanky Redstart, Yellow Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Black-whiskered Vireo, Mourning Doves, White-winged Dove & a Cattle Egret. This was amazing, for me anyhow. I hadn't witnessed anything like this last year and it was obvious that the north coast where we were situated was experiencing a bit of a fall due to the shitty weather that we were having. This area of coastal scrub was doing it's best to impersonate Spurn and I was doing my best to impersonate a dude at Spurn (minus the Sco-Pac)!

April 27th was initially another dull, grey but hot day but the sun soon broke thru again. In the morning I visited the 'Eco-Marsh' - This is basically a fresh water nature reserve (supplemented purely by rain I believe) about 50 yards inland from the sea. It's surrounded by tall trees and scrub and has patches of reeds and dead wood and stuff. It has a long bridge that spans the lagoon and it's this bridge where you scan from. I only had about 50 minutes this particular morning but the list of sightings included Cuban Emerald, 3 Green Herons, 2 Tri-coloured Herons, 7 Black-necked Stilts, 3 Spotted Sands, single Lesser & Greater Yellowlegs, Great (white) Egret, Snowy Egret, Little Blue Heron, (Black crowned) Night Heron, Common Yellowthroat & Tawny-shouldered Blackbird. Twitchwell Marsh eat ya fucking heart out!

Eco-Marsh & Tri-coloured Heron

 Today was also the day our other wedding guests arrived including MIKIPEDIA!

Mikipedia arrives...

....and can't wait to get stuck in!

To be continued...






Cuba 2012 - Part one.

I've been meaning to do this for a while but kept putting it off. However, an extreme lack of decent birds in the UK leads me to be sat here on a Sunday morning, bored, hungover and preparing to scribe what you'll eventually end up reading; if you're lucky! Ok, there are a few decent bits about at the minute but they're either too far away (and too regular to even think about traipsing over to west Wales for) or just not rattling my passion.
So, this blog post. In 2011, I went to Cuba on a family holiday. It was basically a week of sunbathing, drinking, eating & perving with a very small dose of birding thrown in. Nothing hardcore, just a lazy meandering week of seeing what I could see where ever we happened to be. I notched up a small but interesting list of species, many that were new for me, a few endemics and an handful of familiar ones that I'd witnessed previously in Britain. On returning from Cuba, I was immediately hit with P.H.D (Post holiday depression) and one evening, after about a week or so, I happened to mention to my fiancée that I wanted to return to Cuba in 2012. I wasn't expecting the thundering volley of a reply that returned and hit me square in my ears - ''Yeh we can go, only if we get married over there!''.
Now I may have been on one of my regular rouge juice consumption missions that evening, I'd probably been perusing my holiday snaps with a desperate desire to return to the Caribbean, relishing the thought of lounging on those gorgeous white sands, frolicking in the crystal clear warm sea, sipping too many rum based cocktails... I'd have done anything to go back and that was made more evident by my unexpected (to me & her) riposte. ''Ok, yeh, let's do it!''. Now, anyone who has known me for a long time (pre-2008) will tell you that I was one of those small minded individuals (some might say I still am...) that never wanted to settle down, never buy a house, never have a pet and certainly not get married! But, here I was, in summer 2011, sitting in the house I own, with a pet hamster, agreeing to tie the knot! What was I doing! Something was insidiously wrong, surely!
However with the second bottle of rouge juice inevitably opened and the 'wife to be' instantly nabbing my laptop to start showing me wedding ideas, I recall kicking back, feet on the coffee table, hands behind my head and with a inner smile, I closed my eyes and let my brain seduce me into that Caribbean paradise that I now knew I was definitely gonna see again.

April 25th 2012. We're were at Manchester airport, about to board the plane to Cuba. Destination - Holguin airport on the NE bit of the island. I have a massive fear of flying. Not flying like Superman, cos that'd be mint, but sitting on a metal tube with wings whilst it spanks it across the vast Atlantic ocean at about 600mph at a height of over seven miles. But even this wasn't going to stop me, I'd mentally prepared myself for the journey by combining the thoughts of the paradise I was heading to with a few healthy glugs of scotch and a generic calming remedy that can be obtained from all good chemists. At this point, I can honestly say that the forthcoming wedding couldn't have been further from my thoughts. The weather in Manchester was grim. heavy rain and wind, a far cry from the melting sun and glorious blue skies that would be waiting for me at the conclusion of my nine hour journey. It was 9.40am. Most folk in the UK were already hard at work. By the time that some of them finish their day to day routines, I would be there...

San Salvador - 40 minutes to destination.

We arrived at Holguin at 7.40pm (UK time). In Cuba it was only 2.40pm and we had the rest of the day in front of us. The weather wasn't exactly mega but it was hot and the sun was trying to shine thru the huge dark clouds which hung in the sky like those horrible Dementors off of Harry Potter. Collecting our gear, we boarded the coach for the hour long drive to our resort.
En-route, I began to once again become acquainted with the familiar birds of the island. I counted 32 Turkey Vultures before it struck home that my final tally could be in the thousands, so I stopped looking at them. They are absolutely everywhere. It is solid fact that whenever you glance at the sky in Cuba, you WILL see a Turkey Vulture (except at night of course).

Turkey Vulture - number 14,562

A few Northern Mockingbirds and Red-legged Thrushes were noted, a single Cuban Blackbird and 22 Cattle Egrets.
At 4.55pm we arrived at our destination - Playa Pesquero. I was here. I felt at home. Cuba 2012. It had begun.

Hello, Hello, It's good to be back...(?)

Hello! Yep, it's me! I'm back..... well I haven't really been 'anywhere', I've just been incredibly fucking lazy and not 'blogged' for about two & a half months!
I've also been a bit busy doing non-birding stuff and these inconveniences have actually restrained my time for 'Blogging' but now these are out of the way, I can get back down to scribing more (usually alcohol induced) bullshit on here.
Right then, just a little catch-up on what I've been up to since my last 'post' back in early April...

On the 21st of April, I went and had a look at a Black-winged Stilt that was being all gay and residing in Lincs (Frampton).

Be wary if you come across this creature. Known to frequent Lincs, Doncaster and working mens clubs.

I then went to Cuba again from April 25th - May 9th. Once again I had a mint time, saw some cracking birds, got a decent tan, drank far too much Rum and got married (the volume of rum has nothing to do with the latter). I'll try and write something up about the excellent birding I experienced but here's some pictures for you to look at.

Mike 'Fidel' Feely scoping the sea; he saw fuck all.

Snoop Dunn

Colourful Warbler

Fuzzy Red legged Thrush

Upon returning from the Caribbean, I did very little until May 21st when after work I visited a golf course somewhere near Wales to look at this -

On May 23rd I managed to sneak a peek at a snazzy Notts Wood Warbler at a garden centre and on June 1st I spanked it up into Yorkshire to wank over this creature -

June 2nd saw me listening to a Quail in Notts and 25 minutes later I was listening to a much sweeter Quail in Derbys - Much sweeter due to me 'self-finding/hearing' that one.
Lastly, on June 4th I went to Willington GP's in Derbys to watch a distant Red-footed Falcon flying about behind some trees. I've been told by a Willington regular that the rumours that this bird was found dead are actually a load of bollox and were probably started by one of them fish people cos they were pissed off with the bird people walking on 'their' land.

I think that covers the majority of the important 'bases' for now.

Oh, and I got a dog on June 23rd. well a puppy actually, a friesian hound called Brody, Chief Brody. He's a little bastard!

Staggered weekend(s).

Late last year some one said to me ''So, ya getting married eh? S'pose that means ya'll be having a Stag Night...''
Well over the weekend of 31st March/1st April myself and a motley crew of ugly birders from all over middle England descended on the sleazy east coast town of Bridlington for a night of drunken debauchery. En-route to Brid' we bagged a snazzy Red-necked Grebe at Ten Acre Lake on Hatfield Moors, missed a couple of Cranes & a Garganey up near Scarborough and stared at some Purps in Bridlington Harbour. Then we had a night out and the next day we somehow managed to wake up and hang around with the plebs at Flamborough & Bempton. We had a few bits like Ring Ouzel, Black Redstart, Wheatear and stuff but nothing too exciting. The weather was hot and my hangover got worse. In fact the weekend is a bit of a haze and the above is about as much has I can remember.



Hangover cure

 The annual 'four days off' at Easter was eagerly anticipated and on 'Good Friday' (6th April) myself & Mikipedia headed into Staffs to year-tick a Common Crane & Garganey. Nearby, Blithfield Res' gave us all three flavours of Hirundine and an handful of LRP's.

The next day I made the foolish decision to head to North Lincs. I didn't really desire to see the target bird (possible Thayer's Gull or something) but knowing the bird would not be there, I relished the chance to 'pap' some ugly disgruntled faces. The only birds of note were a 2w Iceland Gull which tanked it over the pig shite site and a Peregrine spanking it NE. Having had to drop one of the crew off home in Doncaster so that he could watch 22 blokes boot a bag of wind around, we decided to drop into Boston Park Lake at Hatfield Moors where a couple of Black-necked Grebes were the only highlight.

Fot some unknown reason we then headed back to Brigg where we still didn't see that brown seagull but did add to our shared fuel cost! Nice! Below are a few shots of some of the mugs I 'papped' during the day. As you can see, with these beasts on site, no wonder the bird didn't turn up!

The next couple of days (8th & 9th April) were spent doing very little other than eating well, partaking in a moderate amount of alcohol consumption and generally being a lazy cunt.

(As regular readers will obviously note (I hope), this blog post has been constructed with a liberal helping of  'Can't be arsed').

Maybe tomorrow...

Ok, so for the second weekend running I chose to spend my Saturday morning trudging around 'The Patch' - It happens every year, spring arrives and I get that uncontrollable urge to stomp around the sacred paths, paddocks, pasture and boggy stuff searching for recent arrivals for a few weeks until come mid-April, the little black beepy box starts giving it some beepage and I forget the hallowed turf of KMR in favour of additions to my BOU England, Scotland & Wales list.
Anyhow, this morning I arrived at the rather late time of 7.30am. Now this aint an admission that I overlay, no siree, I was up and ready to go at 6am but a glance out of the window and not being able to see my motor on the drive due to some fog enveloping everything it could touch, forced me to wap on the kettle a few times and await some clearage. By 7.10am, it still hadn't lifted, however with no one online on FaceBook to ridicule, I gingerly made my way to the car and carefully(!) drove to the res'.
Upon arrival, I had a mooch about the Sailing Club Marsh just incase the Jack Snipe was 'showing' - It wasn't. Mr/Mrs Water Rail had also left home early so I headed for the shoreline to look for the Black necked Grebe that had been relocated earlier in the week by Mikipedia. No sign of that either, although, as the following images depict, I wasn't exactly viewing in prime conditions...

Move along, nothing to see here.

One or two Chiffchaffs were singing and a couple of Blackcaps, so with hopes that perhaps maybe there might just be a grounded Wheatear or even Ring Ouzel knocking about, I headed for 'Thee Olde Wheatear Field'. Upon arrival at said field, it was obvious it was a waste of my precious time so I took a break and had a KitKat.

Knowing that he is a fiend for year ticks and to ease my boredom, I sent a text to Mikipedia informing him of the presence of at least three Blackcaps. He replied that he was on his way so I headed in the direction of the Sailing Club for our rendezvous. En Route I came across this ghostly grey gloved hand beckoning me into the marshes! Although it had been a shit morning, I refrained from being seduced into a watery dunk

After meeting up with Mike, we had another search of 'Thee Olde Wheatear Field' (to no avail) before making our way to the Viewing Platform. The sun had now decided to get its shit together and quickly burnt off the offending fog. The lifting of the cloud curtain revealed the jewel like pinnacle on the mucky waters of King's Mill Res' -

Abit of a 'vis-mig' session in 'The Weedy Field' prouced nothing more than a few Mipits so with the sun now BLAZING and NO Hirundines being seen, we departed to the cafe for a brew.

Mikipedia was far from impressed on the mornings offerings

The final tally of shit after 6hrs looked like this (I'm only giving you the interesting stuff) -
1 Black necked Grebe
8 Chiffchaffs
3 Blackcaps
9 Snipe
1 Willow Tit
1 Stoat
4+ decent female joggers with firm arses
1 cup of tea
and a KitKat...

The title of this post says it all.

Return to the patch (again & again)

Ok, so it was Saturday morning (17th March) and for some reason I made the decision to head down to my old stomping ground, King's Mill Res', and do some proper birding instead of that silly twitching nonsense. Upon arrival at KMR, I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of vehicles in the car park! That usually means no other birders have arrived before me but more importantly that there would be minimal numbers of dog walkers and bread throwers!
Due to the peaceful atmosphere my first area of coverage was the scruffy ditch adjacent to the car park where a Water Rail lives and luckily he (or she) was in! I attempted to 'pap' it but my Mobi-Scoping kit just wouldn't focus down close enough. I told him (or her) that I'd be back later to try again, said our goodbyes and went our seperate ways. I headed to 'Thee Olde Wheatear Field' (AKA The Lawson Mardon Paddock) and as I expected, there, on the short cropped turf and perching upon various stuff like posts, upturned baths and wheelbarrows, was NO Wheatears! Too early?

Prime Wheatear turf (minus Wheatear).

Prime Wheatear Posts (minus Wheatear).

Prime Wheatear wheelbarrow (minus Wheatear).

So not dejected in the slightest, I carried on with my ornithological hunting but with the volume being raised by joggers, dog walkers and bread chuckers, I headed towards the viewing platform in order to avoid being trampled. Nearing the platform, I had a quick scan over to the SE and noticed a small raptor circling to the left of Hamilton Hill. I then noticed a much larger bird being rattled by a corvid! The bigger bird was actually an even larger corvid - RAVEN! I locked my scope onto it and enjoyed a good 3 or 4 minutes of aerial acrobatics as the two birds seemingly playfully jostled until the Crow got bored and the Raven sauntered off south east.
I then met up with Rich Challands. We did the obligatory 'stand near the SW corner and look at Snipes & Teals' stuff and spoke eloquently about cats & their owners and then it was time for me to leave.
KMR is about 6.8 miles from my house and should take (according to google) 17 minutes by car. So it was only right for Rich to wait 'til I got home before he should text me with news of a Jack Snipe at the Sailing Club Marsh. Needless to say, I was back at KMR within 12 minutes but alas even with no traffic on the roads(!) I was too late. The Jack Snipe had been flushed. By a dog? A Jogger? Horse? Stray cat? Elephant? Nope! It had been flushed by a fucking FROG! Yep a FROG!
Luckily Rich had seen where it had ditched back down so there was no choice other than to slip on our wellingtons and get stuck into the marsh. It didn't take long for our ingenius plan of clapping, shouting, jumping and smashing cymbals together to work as the little snipe soon got fucked off with it and silently erupted from the boggy ground. It circled above our heads a few times, obviously wanting to ditch down again but due to our presence it bottled it and chose a smaller pond over the railway. Chuffed with that, we went to see if the Water Rail was still at home. It was.

Mr or Mrs Water Rail posed majestically before she had to nip to Asda

I left for home again but I'd only gone about two miles when I received a text from Wayne Collingham. I had to go back AGAIN! Spinning the motor round, I tanked it back, dumped the motor on the entrance track, met Rich and ran over the A617. Wayne was stood in the middle of 'Thee Olde Wheatear Field' looking at this -

Gorgeous Miss Wheatear trying to say ''I've been here all morning'' But I know she's lying!

On a serious note, in almost 18 years of watching KMR, the majority of my Wheatear sightings have been in this field and most have been discovered in the second, late morning, search. Is this because they continue migrating for a few hours after dawn before hitting the deck for the day? Does anyone know?
The excellent morning was topped off with KMRs first singing Chiffy of the spring. I then got in the motor, turned my phone off and went home. My late afternoon/evening was spent having a Cuba meeting with the Cuba Crew. We discussed little and drank lots. The latter being the cause of my failure to get out birding today.

I'll never learn.