A Rainham Visit In Pictures

And some text too otherwise you'll miss out... but the point is that Linda came with me and took photos with her lovely DSLR camera and zoom lens! It's not one of those zoom lenses 20-feet long that you see some people hefting, but it's enough for what we wanted!

We spent a good 3 hours wandering around the reserve in the sun, and saw some nice birds to boot (not literally). As seems to be the case at the moment, we saw a Whitethroat very soon after entering and heard/saw many more on the way round. Several Blackcaps were in full song, and we got good views of both male and female birds in the woodland area. There was supposed to be a Spotted Flycatcher but we didn't have the time (or one of us the willing!) to wait for it to turn up. Then my summer hirundine list was added to when both a pair of Swifts flew over with some Sand Martins - that's my first for the summer!

A photo of a Dunnock singing what Linda took on her camera.

The reeds outside the woodland area yielded Reed Warblers, a Cetti's Warbler that only flew out very briefly so I didn't get much of a look at all, and a pair of Lapwings flying overhead. We also enjoyed really beautiful sights of a few Linnets and a Greenfinch together in a bush - some of the most prolonged views of Linnets I've had (flighty creatures they do be). A Reed Bunting was also the first of several seen, both male and female.

One of the many loud, intrusive, alien Marsh Frogs that was sunning itself and making a racket.

The first hide yielded little (very dry and all the greenery hides quite a lot now too) except for a Grey Heron, Little Egrets, Swallows, a few ducks and a House Martin, thus completing my hirundine list for 2011! Well, the regulars anyway. I'm not bothered about Red-rumped Swallow or Alpine Swift at the moment if I'm honest; I'm perfectly excited by House Martins for now! There was only one, but it was lovely to see swooping across the water.

The aforementioned Little Egret, which landed here just before we left the hide, giving us great views of it feeding.

We heard a Water Rail squealing in the reeds! I hadn't heard one before, so that was a treat. Finally we found Sedge Warblers after the first half of the reserve being dominated by Reedies for so long. One gave us really good views, especially through the scope. Linda got a nice photo of one, but it was a bit distant for the strength of her lens. Click on the photo, though, and you'll get a much larger version to look at.

Sedge Warbler singing to its heart's content!

After the butts hide produced nothing new to add, we were starting to head back when I saw what looked like a Sparrowhawk flying north, a little distance away. I pointed it out to Linda and then looked through my binoculars... it was no Sparrowhawk... it was actually an adult Cuckoo, very grey, flying along with that characteristic below-horizontal wingbeat pattern, very steady and direct. What a great way to end the day and an excellent addition to the year list!

Until next time which will probably be my post about the trip to Wye Valley I shall be taking on 1st June... can't wait!

East India (...Dock Basin)

I had a wonderful three hours at East India Dock Basin this afternoon. There had been reports of an exciting bird there, but I won't tell you quite yet what it was... With the grand yet imposing Millennium Dome squatting menacingly on the opposite side of the Thames, I began my search for birds, immediately finding a group of about eight Cormorants with many others flying over and about. A pair of Shelduck and some Mallards flew by, and a Herring Gull landed on a post just on the river. I turned northwards and towards the small inlet of water where the birdlife was going to be, and watched Sand Martins race overhead. There were some Common Terns swooping about and calling over the water too. Apart from Coots, a Moorhen, Mute Swans, Canada Geese and Tufted Ducks, there wasn't a lot on the water.

With a Lesser Black-backed Gull and some Great Black-backed Gulls soaring over, I listened to and finally watched 3-4 Reed Warblers in the patch of reeds, one giving me excellent views! Quite a striking difference between upperparts and underparts. Then something unprecedented happened. I heard a loud squawk behind me and turned to find an adult Common Tern sitting on the railing extremely close. I knelt down and moved closer and closer, to within a mere 5 feet or so of the bird.

Common Tern, easily identifiable at such close range! This was a phone photo by the way.

It was beautiful to see the Tern so closely and especially when focussing the binoculars as close as possible - a real identification treat! It was then I noticed it had a small silver ring on its right leg. Careful manoeuvring around the bird, some patience and an absolutely hilarious pun (I thought to myself: "Come on, turn, Common Tern!" - just pure gold, I know) allowed me to read and record it:

BRIT MUSEUM
LONDON SW7
XR18809

Very exciting! So I've submitted it to the BTO on their EUring database so I just need to wait to hear back and I'll post any details they have on the bird here. It was a British-ringed bird, I know that much, but that doesn't stop it from being exciting!

I met Stuart Fisher, a local patch-birder, who was really nice and friendly, giving me advice on local birding areas and what to look for at East India Dock Basin. Both species of Blackcap were spotted, along with a single Black-headed Gull flying over and an elusive Jay and Long-tailed Tits. Then we saw something that had been reported three days previously but not seen since; the really exciting bird I mentioned earlier: a Spotted Flycatcher! It was very hard to spot at first, and when Stuart left, I still hadn't really seen it properly. I waited patiently and suddenly caught sight of it again through the foliage of the tall tree in the copse - I was able to follow it for a minute or so and confirmed it definitively as a Spotted Flycatcher. I was really pleased to see one of these as my only other sighting of one was rather putative in Exmoor. Hopefully its continued presence (at least 5 days now) points towards the fact that it may be breeding there! I'll be back soon to get longer views of it and anything else that may turn up!

I'll end on one final pun: now that I've seen it, it really is a Spotted Flycatcher. Think about it.

Suffolk 'n' Brilliant (Part 2 of 2)

Welcome back to the second and final instalment of the epic Suffolk saga.

20/04 - Strumpshaw Fen

After a well-earned rest at Great Yarmouth Travelodge and a delicious Morrisons breakfast, we headed out relatively early to Strumpshaw Fen, an RSPB reserve situated in the marshes east of Norwich. We actually managed to rack up an impressive 16 species (including Red-legged Partridge and Swallow) in the car before we even reached the reserve. The car park was a glorious mixture of singing birds once again, with many seemingly invisible birds giving away their identities through song.

Dad went to the toilet and I saw a Great Spotted Woodpecker. And he didn't. Just thought I'd put that into its own paragraph.

We spotted a Mistle Thrush up in a tree near the train tracks, and watched a lot of Black-headed Gull action through the screen by the visitors' centre. Once we left, we began hearing a Cetti's Warbler really quite close by. Ten minutes of patience yielded the bird in question leaping out of the undergrowth, perching for a fraction of a second and then flying off to bury itself elsewhere, of which unfortunately Dad got a very unimpressive view. There was still time! And plenty of Cetti's Warblers to go round.

Finally we saw our first Willow Warbler of the year, identified by song first, then by sight! Always pleasing. A male Hen Harrier circled around fairly high up and drifted south - a fun bird to identify from such an angle!

We reached the first hide and finally saw (rather than just heard) a Sedge Warbler, perching nicely and repeatedly. Male and female Marsh Harriers were swooping low over the reeds and at least 3 Hobbies made an appearance, hawking about a long way up in the sky. Then I spotted a group of four ducks flying in our rough direction and glanced at them through the binoculars. They were Pochard, but one appeared to have really white wing bars and was quite dark otherwise... my mind briefly skipped back to what I had read on the 'Recent Sightings' board at the visitors' centre and my casual venture into the bird book to give myself a couple of pointers in case I happened to see it... and there it was! A Ferruginous Duck flying! I exclaimed so, and there was a sudden, mad rush in the hide to spot this bird in flight! Luckily the birds flew round the marsh in plain sight three or four times, letting everyone see them well, before zooming out of sight. What a brilliant sense of excitement and panic! There was also a wader that someone spotted far over to the left, in the form of a Green Sandpiper, which we watched and confirmed (in our minds) the identity of. A Reed Bunting also graced us with its presence.

Continuing round, we heard a distant Cuckoo, but of course saw nothing of it. However we did find a lone White-fronted Goose, a bizarre addition to our late April list. We decided that it shouldn't be too unusual to find late migrators or birds injured or too weak to make the journey north, but it was still a surprise! The Tower Hide didn't yield much new except for Teal, Wigeon, Shoveler and Common Terns. There was also a Cetti's Warbler going mental outside the hide!

A fresh alternative to all the Black-headed Gulls

Aside from a Common Gull and relatively putative Stock Dove, that was our lot for Strumpshaw, and time to move onto the next location...

Buckenham Marshes

This was an unusual reserve - basically two ENORMOUS fields on either side of little more than a dirt track, with one hide facing north-west. We even needed to cross the train line by way of waiting for a lady in her hut to come out and manually move the gates for us! The dirt track (in the car) should only have taken a couple of minutes, but we must have pushed it to upwards of ten, what with all there was to see on either side whilst travelling along it. Entire gaggles of Egyptian Geese, Greylag Geese, Lapwings, Black-headed Gulls, and Canada Geese were the immediate birds to view.

Once we disembarked, we found 2 Avocets flying across and into the opposite field - a find made all by myself I hasten to add! We watched a great number of birds here in the sun, including: Linnets, Sedge Warbler, Skylark, Oystercatcher, Redshank, Teal, Wigeon, Shelduck, a Cormorant, Golden Plover (in full breeding plumage; spectacular!), Shoveler, Pied Wagtails, Mallards, a Grey Heron, Rooks, a male Marsh Harrier, a stunning Wheatear (courtesy of Dad), a Reed Bunting, Jackdaws and a few Swallows, with a Cetti's Warbler singing away on the sidelines out of sight. A wonderful selection of birds at a rich and ideal site; one I would very much like to visit again some day.

Surlingham Church Marsh

We arrived quite late on in the day at this small, tucked away reserve, and unfortunately the sun was not favouring our views of the birds that dwelled on the marsh and pools. Never mind, we still saw and heard a nice selection of birds, though none really to add to the day's list. In a field opposite the car park we found yet another Mistle Thrush (they're everywhere these days!) with Carrion Crows and a Blackbird. The small circular track yielded Blue Tits, Great Tits, Wrens, Robins, Mallards, Greylag Geese, singing Chiffchaffs, Willow Warblers and Cetti's Warblers, Teal, Goldfinches, Sedge Warbler, Chaffinch, Pheasant, Dunnock, Great Crested Grebe, Blackcap, Magpies, Woodpigeons, Greenfinches, Moorhen, a(nother) distant Cuckoo calling, and the highlight of the reserve: a reeling Grasshopper Warbler. We couldn't see the 'gropper' (I still can't say that seriously) but listening to its call is a new experience in itself for us, so we relished it.

Then we bought some honey from one of those little wooden boxes in which people sell their wares at the end of the garden, and set off to Lowestoft Travelodge (notice a theme here?) for our dinner and a sleep. We tried the Harvester just opposite the Travelodge but it was absolutely rammed, causing us to take the more preferable option anyway and visit Tesco just across the road, stock up on beer, pasties, bread, houmous, pasta and A WHOLE APPLE PIE AND CUSTARD, and retreat to our room to dine and watch the bloke from 'Coast' talk about ancient England.

22/04 - Minsmere

Aaah, there we go! Minsmere: the cream of the crop, the icing on the cake, la pièce de resistance! To be honest, we had discussed Minsmere through rose-tinted glasses throughout the week (and rightly so if you'll recall our previous excursion to Suffolk's finest reserve which spoilt us rotten for birdlife) and were worrying that we had built it up a little too highly in our minds and were in for severe disappointment. Ever trying to be the optometrist (wait, what?) I stayed positive and believed strongly that we'd have a successful and exciting day. And, true to Minsmere's current form, I was absolutely right!

We exited the car to the sounds of a Greenfinch and walked down to the visitors' centre. Bam - straight away there were 2 Marsh Tits on the feeders! Good way to start. The lady greeting us was very friendly and helpful, guiding us to specific places to see specific birds and giving us general information too. What she told us was enormously exciting but I shan't give it away yet. We walked down to the Sand Martin burrows and there were quite a few Sand Martins zooming around. Nothing hugely of note was visible until we reached the first hide - the North Hide.

Aside from the many birds such as Greylag Goose, Canada Goose, Black-headed Gulls by the truckload, Avocets and Redshank, there was a male Garganey asleep on the bank! Soon he woke up and swam across the large pool he was on, then swam back, feeding.

What a striking bird! Unfortunately he has his head underwater quite a lot of the time.

The Garganey wasn't the only thing on view. There was a small, dispersed flock of Barnacle Geese which were apparently part of a feral population, but good enough for the ticklist in my view (after consulting Dad of course). Plenty of Black-tailed Godwits were probing all over the place as well, and one flew overhead in what I can only think was a display flight, producing a really odd and repetitive call that was almost comical! Then we left the hide, and the best moment of the entire trip happened.

Dad and I heard a Nightingale singing in the bushes very close by, with a Cetti's Warbler also going mental and moving about a lot. Neither was visible, but we chose to stare into the Nightingale bush to try our luck. A couple of minutes later, a bird panicked us by flying onto a low branch, then to another, then to another. I saw the fanned tail; "Cetti's Warbler!", I exclaimed, and it then burst into song, still flitting from branch to branch, then got lost in the undergrowth. Best view so far! We followed the sound further up a bit of heathland but had no luck. However, we heard a second Nightingale singing up ahead, and after a few minutes' searching with binoculars and scopes, we found the Nightingale sitting in full view and singing away near the top of a bush, relatively exposed! We hurried further forward to achieve better views and managed to get them for a minute or so! This was another of those 'wow' moments that I will make another post about soon. Our first proper, definitive view of a Nightingale.

After watching a beautiful singing male Blackcap that Dad managed to find through the scope, we continued round along the North Wall across the reeds towards the sea wall. Obviously keeping our ears open for pinging, we were very alert. This alertness bagged us a Reed Bunting, Sedge Warbler, and then as we scanned for Water Rails along a cut-out waterway, we saw a flash of orange fly across... then fly back out again and down the waterway TOWARDS us! It was a male Bearded Tit! And it began to feed and move through low down in the reeds a mere 15 feet away! It gave amazing views for about 3 or 4 minutes before flying back with a beakful of insects to the place we saw it originally. It then flew out again and off in the other direction, then a couple of minutes later it returned to where we now presumed it had a nest. It was joined briefly by another bird, which someone got a good enough view of to state that it was a female. But wow nonetheless!

After spotting a Skylark we headed into East Hide for a look across the Scrape from another angle. It was one of those moments when you sit down and don't know quite where to look as there is so much going on; very exciting. There were 6+ Turnstones wading about, turning stones (including 2 or 3 that were pretty much in full breeding plumage - a spectacularly striking pattern!), Pintail, 10+ Ringed Plover and 5+ Ruff that were in a wide variety of plumage stages, confusing Dad and myself somewhat. Then we noticed 2 Little Terns sitting on a small scrape just in front of us! Beautiful and tiny birds, which satisfactorily looked exactly the same as they do in the book, and gave me a new life tick! There were Greater and Lesser-black Backed Gulls, a few Oystercatchers, more Godwits, and someone pointed out a 1st-winter Mediterranean Gull that was sitting on a post nearby. Once we'd had our fill of everything the East Hide had to offer, we came back out and walked quickly along to the South Hide, catching a Swallow and several Whitethroats along the way.

As we went down the small path to the hide, Dad stopped and exclaimed: "Look!" - and there was an Adder, black with the yellow diamond pattern down its back, previously sunning itself on the path, that slowly slithered off into the undergrowth to one side. That was our first ever wild snake, so a real treat! Although it wouldn't have been so if Dad had stepped on it...

The South Hide gave us relatively good views, but we didn't stay for long as we knew we'd get better views from the nearby West Hide. However, we did see a group of 20-30+ Sandwich Terns standing on one island, with a Grey Plover a bit further away walking along a spit! My first Sandwich Terns after wanting to see them for years! However, we left the hide and rushed round to the next one to see these birds from a better angle... and there was a group of people just outside it waving us over. We hurried across just in time to see a Bittern stalking through some reeds! It disappeared a few seconds later, but then re-emerged for a second stalk before disappearing completely. Then we heard it booming. What a noise! Almost always four 'booms', a sound that is EXACTLY like blowing across the top of a very large bottle. We heard this sound throughout the day, which simply added to the magic!

But this West Hide gave us something else to enjoy... or some things else to be more precise. We found several Dunlin, most in summer plumage, standing near the Grey Plover from before. We also found a group of 5 small grey birds that were running along the water's edge and feeding quite erratically. A more experienced wader-watcher in the hide identified them as Sanderling - another new bird for me! It was a shame they were at a distance, but nice nonetheless. Then the same bloke suddenly exclaimed: "What the hell is that?!" and pointed out 2 Mallards flying with something quite different. It was roughly the same size, but had a brown head with white cheeks, then the rest was a sort of speckled light brown with a long, whitish tail and - perhaps most striking - a black bill with a prominent red base. It sent everyone in the hide into a fluster trying to identify it and keep it in their scopes. Luckily it settled down giving us these views:

The Mystery Duck - not a great video so my apologies.

Here it is again - not the best quality but you get the idea.

The big bod came along with a camera-scope the size of the Hubble, and took some record shots. He declared it was an escaped hybrid of some sort, probably Red-crested Pochard x Something Else. That was good enough for the time being, but further research (and a very helpful Youtube poster) proved this to be a White-Cheeked Pintail, native to South America! So it was an escapee afterall, but not some non-descript hybrid as we were told. Closure! But very exciting nonetheless to witness something totally new and unexpected. Dad also spotted an odd-looking gull which, after some careful identification, we deduced was a Little Gull that hadn't developed its full summer plumage yet! A nice addition. There were also 8+ Mediterranean Gulls in full summer breeding plumage - such a smart bird and one of my favourites from the trip too!

Aaaah, the satisfaction of picking out one of these beauties amongst thousands of BHGs!

Upon leaving the West Hide, we had our best view of a Cetti's Warbler. It sang, then burst forth from the undergrowth and sat for us to view it for a short while, then flew off singing again and again. That was finally it, after all those fleeting views that just got better and better this trip, we eventually got what we wanted!

On to the Bittern hide, then! We had skipped this entire section last visit so made a point of sparing enough time for it now. It was good that we did! We heard many booming Bitterns (though saw no more unfortunately), got great views of a male Marsh Harrier perching and flying repeatedly, not too distantly, and the same of a male Sparrowhawk that was one of the best views of a living Sparrowhawk I've ever had. Then, just to add icing to the cake for the day, I was looking along the reed edges for Water Rails as Dad always did... and there was a Water Rail. Brilliant! We were so chuffed that all the searching finally paid off, especially since it ran right across a large stretch of water and we got really good views.

The following Island Mere Hide didn't yield anything new, but the walk round to it was relatively productive, with a Coal Tit, a very elusive but eventually rewarding Treecreeper and likewise Great Spotted Woodpecker, a small group of Linnets and our first hearings of both Willow Warbler and Cuckoo, though neither was visible of course! We also, in the last few minutes, just because we could, climbed up the Canopy Hide, but only saw Green Woodpecker and Collared Dove - no 'crests of either kind unfortunately.

Still, I really can't complain as this trip surpassed all expectations, with Minsmere being the plainly obvious winner. Two more 'wow' moments to add to the memory and a fervent anticipation for our next trip... possibly autumn in Dorset...

So, 6 new life-ticks, 24 new year-ticks, and Bronze, Silver and Gold birds that I mentioned before were seen! No Hoopoe, but come on, that's just crazy. And 108 birds seen on the trip altogether, making this by far our most successful trip to date with a Diamond medal awarded for our efforts! Can't wait till next time.