Isle of Man blog

22nd January

Saturday morning I had another visit up to the north of the Isle of Man.
First stop was Ballaugh Cronk just in case another Little Gull was about :)
It was just past high tide so there were very few birds on the beach but there was a flock of mixed finches about which I checked in case of a Brambling but it was just Linnet and Greenfinch.
I quickly moved further up the coast to The Lhen. Here with the tide in the Divers come within 50 yrds sometimes. It took me 2 scans of the sea to find 2 Winter plumage Red-throated divers about 100 yrds out then a little further out another diver surfaced. I got the scope on it and was pleased to see a winter plumage Black-throated diver. Going for the “hat trick” I scanned around and did indeed find a winter plumage Great-Northern diver. Brilliant stuff! None of the birds were close enough for photos though. I then saw a small flock of Geese flying over northwards. Assuming they were the local feral Greylags I had a half hearted look only to find they were Pink-footed Geese!
I was pretty pleased with that as I had missed out on the wintering flock at Glascoe everytime I had tried to see them. I also noticed another flock of finches flying along the dunes north. Curiousity took over so I drove to the next available beach which was Blue Point. I went down to the front edge of the dunes and walked along. I never found the finch flock but did spot a pipit skulking around in the low weeds. It then flew up the beach by about 10 yrds without calling. I thought this was a bit unusual as normally the Meadow or Rock pipits I see always call as they take off. I got close ish again and had a good look. It was a definate Meadow Pipit. Bahh. Never mind one day I will do that and it will be a Red-throated or Olive-backed Pipit :)
I went back to my car and didn’t see anything new so went off to Ramsey again. I had a quick stop to see if the Black Redstart was about but it wasn’t so I then moved off to stake out the Kingfisher again.
This time it was 2 hrs before low tide so I tried up a Pooyl Dhooey (probably spelt wrong). My friend had seen the 2 Kingfishers there at low tide a few days earlier so I parked up by the river and waited.
And waited….. and waited… I had a few things to keep me company as a few small birds kept flying across me into some trees. I checked them all and they were mainly Chaffinch with a few Blue and Great Tit chucked in for good measure. A Sparrowhawk also slowly went through the trees after the finches. After about 3 hrs I decided to cut my loses and head home.
I’m such a gluten for punishment I will probably be there again next Saturday. :)
I took a strange way home and managed to accidentally drive past the Whooper Swan field in Ballaugh. I saw through the bushes that they were extremely close to the roadside so I stopped and got a much better photo than last week.

Click for a larger version

23rd January
I found out that while I was up north the day before, there had been 10 Pintail at Langness (my local patch)!! Pintail is a scarce passage visitor to the Isle of Man and I reckon one of the nicer ducks to see. (Especially the males) So with this in mind in the morning I headed straight for Langness.
It was high tide so I expected to spot the ducks straight away if they were still there. Unfortunately most of the ducks had hauled out and were sleeping in amongst the rocks so trying to see them all was a bit tricky. After trying 3 different viewing positions I finally spotted 2 female Pintail a bit south of Madoc’s pool (this is the small pool that’s in line with Madoc’s hill, I’m not sure if this pool has a name so I always just call it Madoc’s Pool.)
Apart from the usual large flocks of Teal, Wigeon and Curlew there was not much else to see bar about 20 Golden Plover. Not many I know but at least its an improvement over the zero that had been here recently!
Wondering where to try next I then found out there was 4 Waxwings seen at the new hospital entrance the day before. 3 months ago seeing a Waxwing was a lifer for me so having only had a few sightings of them I quickly drove the 15 miles north to the outskirts of the capital of the Isle of Man.
I did a drive by first to try and spot or hear the Waxwings with no luck. I then got lost in the new hospitals car park! But managed to eventually find my way out. On my way out just by the entrance gate I spotted the 4 Waxwing in a tree on the right. Not wanting to park where I was I drove about 300 yrds away and was able to find a safe place to park. When I walked back the Waxwings were not in the tree!! Luckily I heard their loverly call from behind me and saw they had moved into the bushes on the opposite side of the road. I managed to walk round the bushes and get the sun (well the direction of the sun anyway) behind me. After about 1 hr one of the Waxwings came down and fed in a bush about 5-6 ft from me. I had my camera up ready for a shot but was looking past it to try and pinpoint where the WW had landed so before I got a shot off the WW was gone again!! NOOoooooo
What an opportunity missed that was!
Slightly depressed at this, I picked myself up when another WW appeared about 10ft away. This time I didn’t mess up my chance and got a shot I am very pleased with.

Click for larger version
Thank god I’m using a Canon 20D as in the bushes the light wasn’t good and I was able to use ISO 800 with hardly any noticeable “noise” on the finished shot.
Happy with seeing Waxwings again and getting a photo I left them to carry on finishing off the last few berries.
On the way home I popped in at Eairy Dam (a small reservoir in the middle of the island) to try and see Tufted Duck. Unfortunately there wasn’t any there. In fact last winter there were Tuftys, Pochard and Gadwall as well as the Wigeon and Teal here but this year there are only the Wigeon and Teal. I’m not sure what’s happened to the other ducks. Have they died or have they decided to winter somewhere else like at the Gravel Pits up at the Point of Ayre. Where the people with access have recorded large amounts of Pochard and Tufted Duck. I did see a few Coot on Eairy Dam though which was a first for the year for me! :)

24th January
I didn’t do any birding today but after work I had an evening trip to B&Q (lucky me!). On the way home a Barn Owl flew across the road! Excellent stuff!. It’s pure fluke if you see a Barn Owl on the Isle of Man during the year. (I only managed 1 sighting through all of last year.)