LD2 and #BWKM0 again

A first visit to Pulborough since Lockdown 1 last Wednesday was followed the next day by start of Lockdown 2 and probably means no more visits this year. 

Caught up with PW, JU,KN plus Richard (immediately furloughed again!) and Michael and spent the whole time sat by Reception Pond where a couple of Woodlarks and singles of Raven and Sparrowhawk were the best. Precious little wildfowl on the South Brooks and no harriers.

Later at WWT, with just a short visit to Ramsar Hide only, the species list for the day crept up to a respectable 61 species -not bad considering minimal walking. Sad to hear of two long-term staff members leaving in the weeks ahead. Snipe and Water Rail put on a good show but again no harriers and even Kingfisher was a no-show.

For LD2 Pulborough and WWT remain open(no access to hides tho') with takeaway food and drink only, whilst Titchfield Haven is totally closed for the duration  - curious as the HCC run 'sister site' at QECP is managing to keep their cafe open for takeaways.

Unlike LD1 in spring with life bursting out, birdsong and arriving summer visitors it's going to be much harder to enjoy #BWKM0 but I'm  guessing those with productive local patches will do OK. With places like reserves etc staying open to some degree and the addition of 'recreation' to 'exercise' in the list of permitted activities hopefully getting out slightly further afield than the local patch will be OK. 

And below, last indoor coffee for a while.

Wiilllssonnnn!!!!!

 

Sussex records of Wilson's Phalarope from Birds of Sussex(Paul James).

1971: An adult female at Arlington Reservoir on 25 September, at the Cuckmere Haven oxbows on 26-27 September and then on the long pool' near the northwest corner of Pagham Harbour from 28 September to 6 October Birds 65: plates 50b, 78a and 78b) when it was mindlessly shot.

1978: An adult along the eastern side of Pagham Harbour on 21 October 1979: An adult at Sidlesham Ferry on 26-27 August.

1984: An adult female at Ternery Pool, Rye Harbour on 30 June and 1st July
An adult at Sidlesham Ferry on 12 October.

1985: A first-winter at Ternery Pool, Rye Harbour on 9 October

1987: A juvenile moulting into first-winter plumage at Sidlesham Ferry from 18-
26 September (Brit. Birds 81: plate 19).

1991: An adult male at Sidlesham Ferry on 3 June

The presence of a Wilson's Phalarope in Hampshire got me reminiscing  about previous encounters with this species; an unrecorded but probably single figure count in Canada, 250+ in Texas and five in the UK - or was it four?? My own notes from the past are pretty 'thin' at best and it took some input from JAN via SDOS to track down the last bird above (my fifth). This was seen after a day's outing to Hanningfield Reservoir for a Bridled Tern which, needless to say, had departed. I'm  guessing a stop at a roadside phone box and a call to Birdline SE prompted the return to Sidlesham. Until now I didn't realise this was a one-day wonder. Sadly, last month's Pennington bird would have been the first since the Cley bird seven years ago and a Hampshire tick but the drive and particularly the walk from the car park was beyond me.

It also prompted thoughts about birds names with the BLM/BAME/George Floyd effect providing further ammunition in the US for removal of honorifics. I'm  not sure if they (the AOS/ABA)  intend to rename all birds named after 'colonial' explorers and naturalists or to only focus on those with some history of involvement with the confederacy, slavery, oppression of Native Americans or if every 'baby' is going to be thrown out with 'the bath water'. Personally, I've  always found it fascinating to find out who these people were and read about it in various books by Richard and Barbara Mearns (Biographies for Birdwatchers being the first), Bo Beolens (Eponym Dictionary of Birds), Stephen Moss (Mrs Moreau's Warbler) etc. Much is now available  via Wikipedia allowing for erroneous info.

But back to Alexander Wilson who went from a weaver and part time poet in Scotland (- how much money was there in poetry 200 years ago??-)  to The Father of American Ornithology encouraged  by another naturalist William Bartram (who had Bartram's Sandpiper named after him  - many years ago being renamed to the less-than-accurate Upland Sandpiper, the 100 or so that I've  seen being on land barely above sea-level and the first of which was on a freeway divider  strip outside Houston!! No mountains there). So, if the Americans have there way what will happen to AW's phalarope, storm-petrel, plover, snipe and warbler?? 

So far the first casualty is McCown  (rightly or wrongly and no political slant here from me) whose longspur seems to have been renamed Thick-billed. Will West and East Palaearctic honorifics also be subject to scrutiny? Will we lose Pallas, Bewick, Radde, Baer, Przevalski and so on or will their human rights credentials prove to have been 'on point' by 21st century  standards??

Pendulines at Titchfield

 

Yesterday, five Penduline Tits were found at Titchfield from Spurgin Hide, so with a ticket already booked for today I popped over, had a coffee and found that they'd  been seen briefly by an early visitor. Managed to  hobble as far as Darters Dip where Ian C told me they'd  not been refound in wet and windy conditions and that the hide was full with DC's bird group and Mark plus Dad so, after checking with MF that they'd not popped out, I gave up. This recently cut patch in front of the hide(above) was full of Teal and at least ten Snipe but sadly no Jacks. Hopefully the tits will  hang around as they did between December 2015 and March 2016 when I saw them on six dates.

Half-term WWT

Nicely organised visit to WWT, first since August, with socially distanced indoor eating as shown above. (Note the wacky new cardboard coffee cups being very efficient at keeping things hot for ages). Being half term it was fully booked so not too quiet and the usual strimming drowned out pretty much everything - new notices around the site enquire as to whether you can hear 'such and such calling' - needless to say, no!!

A Cattle Egret was hunkered down, multiple Kingfishers heard and these two Med Gulls above were part of six or more in all three age classes but none ringed. The usual four raptor species were present but Peregrine and Marsh Harrier were both absent.

Water Rail, multiple Cetti's and Chiffchaffs were heard only. 

Nice chat with a lady and grandson from Guildford.

There is a very fine line between Hobby and mental illness!!

Plagiarised/borrowed  this quotation from the American author and columnist Dave Barry. Somehow this popped up twice in recent weeks via different aspects of social  media. I suspect  he may not comprehend the use of capital aitch!!

Whilst visiting TH with M for morning coffee the WhatsApp notification for this bird sounded. Luckily, bins in car, day ticket available and M happy to snooze in car by the West entrance while I hobbled down to  the hide. Curiously the local 'togs feigned ignorance of this bird but visitors pointed it out immediately - I didn't  have time to faff about. The bird had in fact earlier been right in front of the hide giving frame filling photos but apparently everyone had been told to suppress the bird by a volunteer and no more WhatsApp messages appeared neither did it ever appear on Goingbirding!! How bizarre. Wonder what else gets suppressed.(Photo courtesy of AR)

A few days later, whilst  enjoying this....

... this happened.

So disappointed not to see Kirk, Spock, Bones and an unnamed blonde in a short red skirt materialise!!

This marks the 20,000th piece of jigsaw since lockdown - I think we'll have a rest now.

TH visit and other QECP BSM and coffee

 

Common Snipe from Titchfield handheld phone-scoped. This flushed out of grass and decided to land as close to the hide as possible. Otherwise little else.

At QECP three Spotted Flycatchers were briefly showing at the South end of the slope.

Butterfly numbers are now much reduced with non-whites represented by this Small Copper (above) and two each of Common Blue and Small Heath, all very fresh. For the first time this autumn Migrant Hawkers outnumbered Common Darters by about ten to one although none of the former were perched up for a photo. The small patches of 'still white' Angelica attracted a few insects including Cheilosia spp and Chrysogaster solstitialis hovers,  this Tenthredo spp  (suggested as possible schaefferi via FB), a few Ectemnius wasps and this Tachinid fly possibly Epicampocera spp.

QECP & WWT

Tuesday

Coffee, breakfast muffin and a short hobble around the bottom path at the park was quiet but this female Helophilus trivitattus popped out but was a little  'too far in' for a close-up and soon after this male H. pendulus was close by. A couple of invisible Siskin went over and at least one Spotted Flycatcher  was calling from well up into the biggest trees.

Thursday

After yesterday's visit called off due to weather, today saw very nice weather for a trip to Arundel which, unsurprisingly, was rammed with people. The reserve was also full of families . Nice to catch up with Richard but birdlife was quiet with just various heard Kingfishers, multiple Buzzards (some obviously whining  youngsters), single Sparrowhawk and Common Sandpiper. House and Sand Martin's were overhead.

Patches of Fleabane and Water Mint etc were attractive to a few insects:-

Nowickia ferox 

Tachina fera 

Nomada spp

Volucella inanis and zonaria

Helophilus pendulus and trivitattus

Eristalis pertinax and tenax

Other  small unidentified hovers

Odonata were represented by:-

Brown  Hawker

Migrant Hawker

Southern Hawker

Black-tailed Skimmer 

Common Darter

Ruddy Darter

Blue-tailed Damselfly and

Small Red-eyed Damselfly

A post-pasty sojourn on a shaded bench with a juvenile Canada Goose cropping the grass between my feet saw two calling and overflying Ravens; later one returned and soared  effortlessly for ages quietly croaking away to itself and seeming to enjoy the freedom of just cruising around, getting higher and higher until it disappeared into the blue. 

Sunday

Just a brief coffee visit with crowds of runners, cyclists and dog-walkers - Buzzard over the park, Red Kite over the road and a Grey Wagtail in the carpark; a Spotted Flycatcher was again calling from the same spot as Tuesday.

Four horsemen...

(Chalkhill Blue, Comma, Dolichovespula media, Nowickia ferox, Athalia spp, Harebell all from QECP and Cormorant, Little Egret, Volucella inanis, Leptura quadrifasciata, Volucella zonaria, Common Terns, Redshanks and a Common Sandpiper from TH).

The four horsemen of the 'wildlife apocalypse', Covid19, arthritis, August and heat have all combined over the last couple of weeks  to make it pretty joyless being out.

Locally, bird life has been very thin with just a one observer, one day Citrine Wagtail as a stand out. A prebooked TH outing (masks in hides now) was pleasantly quiet peoplewise and produced decent views of the female Marsh Harrier and two Kingfishers, both firsts since before the start of lockdown, plus the autumn's first Yellow Wagtail and a nice roadside Water Rail; three more of the latter were heard. At least two juvenile Sparrowhawks were calling continuously from the usual clump and this year's Kestrels were hunting together over the meadow. One or two Silver-washed Fritiliaries washed up and down the boardwalk on a couple of dates.

Many 'mothers' have attracted  loads of Jersey Tigers whilst trapping which ought to prompt me to put mine out tonight whilst this hot, dry weather lasts; sadly all my garden moths info for the last three years held in spreadsheets was lost due to a factory reset on a tablet - I'd  foolishly forgotten that I'd  never backed up to an external device. Doh!!

Thankfully last night's decision to hold off on the moth trap was a good call as it rained hard at least twice during the night.

Another pre-booked visit to TH on Thursday was quiet with just a single  Wheatear in the meadow, the first this year. MF's earlier  Black Tern and Whinchat had both gone into hiding. Various heard onlys included Green Sandpiper, Water Rail, Cetti's Warbler, Bearded Tit and the juvenile Sparrowhawks.  The juvenile 'European' Blackwit was present along with a couple of Common Sandpipers and a Dunlin and the single Great Crested Grebe chick was still bring fed by parents. Volucella zonaria was on Water Mint and a Helophilus  trivittatus was also seen, but little else.

A non birding outing today saw a flyover Grey Wagtail in town and a Red Kite out towards the windmill.

Birding - The beginning - Part 3 - Optics

The initial months of 'being a birder' were without any optical aids but luckily a friend had access to a pair of 7×50 individual eyepiece focussing binoculars which we were allowed to 'share' although curiously NOT allowed to alter the right ocular which made for one eyed viewing!!

An unexpected and not entirely appropriate birthday present that first year came from my grandfather  - a pair of brass (well brass looking) 4×40 opera glasses and these were packed into the ex-army gas mask case along with the Observer's Book of Birds, flask, sandwiches and Mars Bar for all outings for the next few months.

Luckily, my parents realised I needed something better and that Xmas (1967) saw the 'main present' turn out to be a pair of Prinz 16×50 binoculars from Dixons I think - basically  junk by today's  standards but at the time the single biggest improvement to my viewing experience to date.

Within a few days I'd seen Red-necked Grebe from the road bridge and a cracking male Velvet Scoter from the old Tudor Sailing Club.

Over the years another handful or more of binoculars came and went either sold, part exchanged for an upgrade or sometimes used to destruction - the old porro prism binoculars were always being dropped, knocked out of alignment or fogging up with damp incursion.

Half a dozen scopes came and went starting with a Nickel Supra funded by my degree grant which, being drawtube, eventually seized up  - in hindsight I don't  know why I didn't  go for the Hertel and Reuss a much better instrument.

Luckily things are better now although if someone had said to teenage me that in 50 years you'd be paying £2,500 for a pair of binoculars and over £3,000 for a scope I'would have broken down in fits of laughter!!

A couple of more butterflies...

At the park finally, a couple of male Chalkhills (my first this summer) made it to the 'tree dump' area presumably searching for females and/or horshoe vetch, whilst around the pond a couple of fresh Holly Blues and my first male Southern Hawker and Figwort Sawfly. Unlike this time last year precious few hovers and little Wild Carrot to attract them; presumably the early, hot and extended spring has had a detrimental effect. All insects seem to be hard to find.

Red not grey..

('Red' Knot and seven of twenty Turnstones using whatever perches were available)

Male Volucella zonaria, Black-tailed Skimmers, a brief hawker spp and a flyby fritillary spp were the only decent  insects. The Avocet family down to two chicks, lots of birds on the scrapes but once again the Roseate Tern proved elusive, although it was reported later. Sadly, in two visits pre- and post-lunch no other scope-toting birders just camera users so no help there! With so many white birds all dozing on and around the causeway it was like looking for a needle in a haystack and the view from the third hide is compromised by the height of the vegetation. Roll on crap weather to thin out the crowds and parking. On the bright side few other hide users and all 'socially distanced'.

Birding - The beginning - Part 2 - Books

Books at home were few and far between growing up although the local library provided plenty of kids stuff. Two volumes of the Narnia chronicles, one a school prize and  the other a birthday present from a grandfather that same summer, an old and already battered copy of Jacques Cousteau's Silent World and John Hunt's Ascent of Everest was pretty much it. However there was an old Reader's Digest compendium which featured a chapter or so from Fred Boswell's fictionalised tale The Last of The Curlews which I found fascinating - until then I thought extinction was for dinosaurs and mammoths!!

Like most people my first birdbook was the Observers book which got thumbed until it disintegrated. However, it didn't take long to realise the limited number of species and 'victorian' style artwork made it mostly useless. The Observer's Book of Bird's Eggs was more useful early on!

Although having been available for a decade or more the Fitter and Richardson and Peterson guides were still not easy to find. The former came to me first ( a pocket money purchase? a just-because present?) but peer group suggestions were 'get the Peterson book, it's better'. So, like many people, that was my default ID guide for ages and again was thumbed until it fell apart. A cousin found a pristine copy inadvertantly left behind by a birder and promptly  sold it to me for 50p (or was it a quid!!). But by now, aged 14, it was made clear by more experienced birders that only 'dudes' carried a field guide; if you wanted to be taken seriously leave it on the bookshelf and take a notebook and pen it its place! So that copy of Peterson lasted much longer.

The other main work for UK bird identification was the already well out of date Witherby's Handbook - and well out of financial reach of someone who didn't even have so much as a paper round! But luckily the main library had a copy in the reference section  - I did consider slipping it under my coat volume by volume!!

Another glorious book was the rather wonderful House on the Shore by Eric Ennion - the tale of setting up Monk's House Bird Observatory, littered with lively paintings and tales of ringing nets and traps ; all of interest to a newly-taken-on trainee ringer. I can't remember if that's where I got the design of my chardonneret trap from!!

Some more inspiration came from the library in the form of Guy Mountfort's  two books Portrait of a Wilderness and Portrait of a River both published some years before I started birding but so exciting to read. Not sure how I missed out on Portrait of a Desert ; maybe its not too late to find an old copy.

I guess the final offering in those first few years was the weekly publication Birds of the World, edited by John Gooders and which gave a rock solid weekly fix of exotic and mostly unheard of birdlife for a couple of years. I well remember the back page being typically devoted to a single species painting by one of the many 'old masters' of ornithological art and in one case, Laughing Falcon. Not sure why but I was particularly transfixed by that one. Nearly twenty years later, stepping off a minibus in Costa Rica and there it was, the real life version and a species I'd not thought about in the intervening years. If I could have one birding moment over again from the last half-century that would be it.

Butterflies

Quiet in recent days, although the TH Roseate Tern has dropped in again and hopefully might show itself at the next visit.

A first visit to SC on their reopening day was pleasant. A Yellowhammer was audible from the car on the approach road and a family of Marsh Tits were calling on arrival. A Silver-washed Fritillary was dashing about and a number of Six-spot Burnet moths were along the bottom path whilst the large patch of Buddleia had as many Red Admirals as I've seen this year.

The following day the usual short walk at QECP produced fourteen species of butterfly, although I didn't attempt to check the small skippers to species. I'm sure a walk across to the west side of the road would have added Small Heath, Common and Chalkhill Blue if I'd had the time.

Below Dark Green Fritillary (not completely pristine), tatty Small Tortoiseshell and a male Brimstone.

Birding - The beginning - Part 1 - Inspiration

Growing up in a city in a two--up-two-down which opened out onto a treeless, and for the most part still carless, road with a tiny yard come back-garden meant that birds were absent from life up to 10-11 years old. I have absolutely no recollection of sparrows, starlings or any some such, either at home nor on the walks to respective infant and junior schools.

The first sign of an interest in birds was an old black-and-white snap from a Cornish holiday in 1962 standing with a macaw on one arm and a parrot on the other, sadly neither identified to species!!

With an absent services father, a non-driver mother and little spare money TV formed the backbone of most evenings at home and here the combined works of Hans and Lotte Hass (underwater), Armand and Michaela Denis (safari) and of course early David Attenborough were preferred viewing after the usual kids programs. A little later these were bolstered by Jacques Cousteau and of course the much more 'offbeat'  Animal Magic with Johnny Morris. And of course this was all in wonderful black-and-white. Some other memorable inspirations came from family and school visits to London Zoo and Natural History Museum - after the former I remember being horrified at how small the vulture cages were and after the latter the uncomfortable feeling that all the old and faded stuffed birds would have looked so much better alive in the wild. 

In North America they have a term - spark bird- to describe a species which can be directly linked to the inspiration for a life with birds, In my case it was a trip to Scotland where an albatross was in the middle of a turning circle in front of a great-aunt's prefab and Capercaillie in a nearby field - and both just outside the Gorbels-dominated Glasgow!! It didn't take too long to figure out the albatross was a black-backed gull species; the Caper a pheasant? a pigeon? or just a figment? Who knows? Either way there was now a definite interest in and awareness of birds.

The next 'spark' was a house move prior to senior school and this during the 1966 World Cup finals. I well remember sitting on an upturned, empty tea chest cheering as Bobby Charlton's long range shot rocketed into the back of Mexico's goal!! The garden birdlife was still 'slim pickings' but the local pond held plenty of exotic wildfowl - Wood Ducks, Mandarins, Rosybills, Red-crested Pochards and so on. The domestic Muscovy Ducks were less attractive. Beyond this pond an old allotment patch was covered in collapsed sheds and corrugated iron which provided a great hunting ground for an 11 year-old looking for Bank Voles, Common Shrews, Slow-worms and newts. And also the start of a very short phase of egg-collecting, starting with a Lesser Whitethroat and only extending to half a dozen eggs of the same number of species; after just a few weeks I realised this was wrong.

Beyond the allotments was 'home' for the next six years, high school and views across to the harbour. One teacher commented in an old end-of-term report - ' Russell appears distant and in a world of his own' - probably too busy watching the Pied Wagtails running around outside or the Kestrel which used to sit prominently just outside the English classroom.

Finally, the streaming process put me, the youngest, into the same group as another fledgling birder seven months older than me and hence seven months further down the birding road and an ideal companion for the next few years if only because of his father's binoculars.... but more of that later.

Another TH visit...

(Some of this year's Avocets Marmalade Fly, Gatekeeper, Bluetailed damselfly)


... before non-members are readmitted next week.

Typically pretty grey on arrival with the weather improvement  coming just after arriving back home!!

Last visit's single small Avocet chick was nowhere to be seen but a family of five featured three even smaller chicks. Much the same otherwise although two Green Sandpipers were on north scrape and it was nice to see three fresh and fledged juvenile Sandwich Terns flanked by juvenile Common Terns, Med Gulls and BHGs. Two Buzzards were dive bombed by a Kestrel and a Sparrowhawk flushed out of a trackside tree - but still no Hobby nor Marsh Harrier and, despite looking, no sign of yesterday's Black Terns nor MF's Roseate. A surprise find was a male Phasia hemiptera on the footpath which I think is the first I've seen here.

Bits and bobs

Flat battery and no spares at PHP Friday so no photos and just Gymnosoma rotundatum, Chrysotoxum bicinctum and a few Ectemnius spp. No birds of note.

Monday at TH with the above insects -  Paracorymbia fulva, Rutpela maculata, Conops quadrifasciatus, Eriothrix rufomaculata. An Ancistrocerus spp was trying to land on the camera whilst photographing the latter and the tachinid Phania funesta popped up again.
Birdwise singles of Knot and Dunlin, 100+ Black'wit, one 'fluffball' Avocet chick plus sixty odd adults and full-grown juveniles. Four Sandwich Terns exited the reserve but no sign of the Roseate Tern. Brief chats with IC, MF and IM.