Graham's Birding Blog: 2011

Sunday 13 November 2011

More geese, but finally a rare

I headed out to Nelson Head first thing today. As on the north coast yesterday, lots of Blackbirds and a few Robins, but rather quite otherwise. I had a few Snow Buntings on Horsey Beach flying over the pupping Grey Seals and then headed back to the car. I had a quick scan along the dunes before I reached my car and to my delight saw a Red Kite moving slowly south. It dipped down behind the dunes a few times, presumably interested by seal placenta. Above it was a large falcon, presumably a Peregrine, which soared around and then headed off north.
I decided to go a little further north and headed off to Horsey Gap. Again it was a bit slow, but when I returned to my car I stopped to ID a small bird that had flicked up into the top of some sallows. It turned out to be a Chiffchaff, so I stood and watched to see if there was anything else in the area. It was then that I heard a light "tuck" call coming from a little further back in the bushes. The call reminded me of a Radde's Warbler that I'd heard a couple of weeks ago, but perhaps slightly harder. I headed into the bushes and after a bit of searching tracked down the call - Dusky Warbler! It gave me the run around a bit, proving VERY difficult to photograph, but I eventually got a few clear photos of it. I put the news out and when the first people came along to look at it (about an 90 minutes after I found it), I headed off to Cart Gap to look at a lovely flock of mixed Tundra Bean, Eurasian White-fronted, Graylag and Pink-footed Geese.
I great way to finish off the autumn!

Dusky Warbler

Tundra Bean Geese

Tundra Bean Goose

Greylag Goose

Eurasian White-fronted Goose

Saturday 12 November 2011

Autumn's not over, but I'm looking at geese

Mark Golley and I headed out and spent all day in Burnham Overy Dunes and the west end of Holkham Pines. There was quite a lot to look at, but our hard work and persistence didn't pay off with a nice rare unfortunately. The tally of birds for the whole day was quite good though. 5 Shorelarks were the best find. They flew over calling and then looked to land out of sight in the dunes. Unfortunately, when we made our way over to where we thought they'd landed, they where nowhere to be seen. A massive Lapwing movement was taking place today. We had 1000+ birds all moving west during the day. Dave Foster from Whitburn also commented on the number of Lapwings he had over Tyneside today, so I guess they must be on the move big-time. One Lapwing in particular got the adrenalin running. It had white primaries and primary coverts (on both wings), the back looked paler and the whole bird looked smaller. But it was just a partially albino/leucistic Lapwing. Lots of migrant Blackbirds in Burham Overy dunes, along with quite good numbers of Song Thrush, Redwing, Robin, Linnet and Greenfinch. There were a few birds in Holkham Pines. 4 Chiffchaffs and 2 Blackcaps were the only warblers we saw all day, along with great views of a Firecrest and a group of at least 3 Waxwings flying west. There were good numbers of Lapland Buntings flying over all day. One flock of 11 birds was the most together, pushing the daily total to 25+ birds. The sea, which was quite choppy on our way out to Holkham was flat calm on our return, so it was quite easy to see a few Slav Grebes and a female Long-tailed Duck along with quite a few Common Scoter and Red-throated Divers.

There were lots of geese in the area, mainly Pink-feet and Dark-bellied Brents. There were some nice Pale-bellied Brents, but the 'best' bird was a Black Brant x Dark-belled Brent hybrid. On the more striking side of a hybrid, the bird had a good neck ring and very contrasting flank patches, but the back and belly wasn't dark enough for a pure Brant. The day was nicely capped-off by a flock of about 10,000 Pink-footed Geese that took off from fields near Docking, filling the horizon.

Firecrest

Hybird Black Brant x Black-bellied Brent

Hybird Black Brant x Black-bellied Brent (rear)

Pale-bellied Brent (left) with Dark-bellied Brent

Pink-footed Geese

Saturday 15 October 2011

Waxham - 14 Oct 2011. Autumn at last!

I took the day off as I'd been gripped off the day before by not one, but two different birders telling me that they'd found Red-flanked Bluetails, so I thought I should give it a go. I headed out to East Norfolk early on and headed out on the Nelson Head track. Plenty of birds on the move, especially Meadow Pipits, lots of finches (Brambling and 27 Crossbills the highlight), quite a few Redwing and Fieldfare, Read Buntings, 1 Lapland Bunting and lots of Lesser Redpoll. There was also Whinchat, Northern Wheatear, White Wagtail, a couple of Chiffchaffs hanging around in various places too. I headed off to Horsey Gap after that, from where I walked north to Waxham. A single Barn Swallow was flying around the car park, but the rest of the walk was pretty quiet. A couple of Short-eared Owls came in off the sea and I had good views of a Great Grey Shrike that had been hanging around Waxham. Upon arriving at Waxham I found that there had been a Radde's Warbler in the church yard but after spending about an hour there I had one flight view and heard it call a few times. The end of the day brought me wishing I'd gone north, as late news emerged of a Rufous-tailed Robin had been found on East Hills (late as in it was found late in the day and late as in the fact that it was actually on Warham Greens, information that was nicely suppressed for ages before putting the correct new out. Thanks for nothing).

Great Grey Shrike Waxham, Norfolk

Short-eared Owl, fresh in off the sea, Waxham

Sunday 2 October 2011

California, Nevada and Arizona - 24 July -13 Aug 2011

I've been really bad at updating my blog lately. Part of it is that I've not been out all that much, but the main reason is that I've just been lazy. Here are a bunch of photos that I took on the family holiday to the States this summer.