Rediscovering the Joys of Birding
• Tuesday, April 22, 2008 - Lots of Summer Arrivals
One of the things that I am particularly enjoying about this year of rediscovering birding is the appreciation of the arrival or migrants etc which I must have missed as a boy because I find myself coming to this year with only the vaguest understand of what arrives when.
Firstly by way of book-keeping I should mention that I am adding Egyptian Goose to my year list: on the way to Appleford on one several failed attempts to see the local glaucous gull I did see a "funny" goose in the flooded fields but hadn't had time to think about it and dismissed it as some feral goose. Later on when paging through my bird guide I came across the Egyptian Goose and realised that that was what I'd seen, so a belated tick for that one.
Having arrived back from my week of sea birds I was keen to get out there and "greet" the arriving migrants. To this end on the first day back I went out to my local patch at Port Meadow to see what was around. It was rather overcast and starting to rain but I took L out in his new super buggy and also younger daughter B on her bike to see what was about. The Meadow was looking very green and luscious. A quick scan soon revealed the pleasant surprise of three yellow wagtails on the floods, standing out in the gloom. There were quite a few ruff still around, starting to moult to their summer plumage now. Scanning in the distance I spied a couple of dunlin in sum. plum. and also a flock of little ringed or ringed plovers. At that distance and in the gloom I had to wait until they flew before I could ID them but they were quite flighty and soon revealed themselves to be a flock of 6 LRP's, which was a nice sight.
The next day I came back to the Meadow but there were no yellow wagtails or dunlin or LRP's. However there were a large number of hirundines, mainly swallows and sand martins but at least 3 house martins in amongst them.
Later that day whilst driving on a trip to the local garden centre I spotted a hobby sitting on a lamp post by a dual carriage way. It flew off as we passed.
Yesterday I had an errand to run down in Abingdon so naturally I asked on the local news group about good birding sites and was told of the local sewage works and surrounding lakes. I took a trip down there and found some good fields which could hold some interesting passage waders though I could not see any that day. The lakes were surrounded with either reeds or thick bramble and was ideal warbler territory. There were a number of sedge warblers singing and I managed to get quite a decent view of one singing its heart out from a few metres distance. I was also fortunate enough to come across a cetti's warbler which gave itself away with its loud song and then flew across the path.
This morning I walked around my local patch to look out for warblers. The local trap grounds (scrub and woodland around a small reeded pond) held several chiffchaff, willow warblers and blackcaps but no sign yet of any reed warblers in the reed beds. On the Burgess Field NR I heard a softly reeling grasshopper warbler and soon managed to spy him skulking in the bottom of a bush. At that same moment a whitethroat flew by and sang a few times from the top of a neighbouring bush, giving nice close views before flying off again.
Back at the Meadow that same evening there were a pair of terns hunting and preening. I had a good look at them and a number of pointers confirmed them as arctics rather than commons: short stubby legs, rather dark grey undersides, quite short necks and monochromatic blood red bills.
Quite a few migrant ticks to add to the year list and I'm nearly at my target of 150 already. In hindsight this target was far too small (remember I've not done a year list before) so I'm going to reset it to 175. I think that once the obvious summer arrivals are all in, the year tick rate will probably go right down and I'll be very happy if I can get 175. Of the 10 common warblers I've now seen 7 already so just three to go (garden, reed and lesser whitethroat). I've still got swift to go out of the hirundines and there are other interesting things like whimbrel, common redstart, pied flycatcher etc.to try for as well as sure things like common terns. I've also ruthlessly pruned my life list now so if I can't definitely remember seeing a bird then it's not on the list. This means that officially I've not seen a reed warbler for example, so there should be a few more easy life ticks to pick up along the way.
140 Egyptian Goose
141 yellow wagtail
142 house martin
143 hobby
144 sedge warbler
145 cetti's warbler (LIFER)
146 grasshopper warbler
147 whitethroat
148 arctic tern |
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