Welcome windhover

The Peregrines both roosted with the female perched up prominently and silhouetted against the darkening sky whilst the male's presence was only discernible by his bright white throat and chest. Both were still present at dawn but the male departed soon after.

Three Med Gulls flew low overhead but decided not to linger amongst the other gulls on the pond.

The changing weather meant that there were far few dog walkers than normal ; birdwise a passing Kestrel was the highlight as they are far less frequent in the area than when I was growing up and a new addition to lockdown list.

At the golf course ten or so Swallows were chattering away and skimming low over the greens with chuntering Reed Warblers and whinnying Little Grebes in the background, although the spits and spots of rain soon saw them perching up in the reeds. A pair of Egyptian Geese were a real surprise as I've never seen them on Portsea or indeed in the surrounding area although, upon seeing me, they flew off northwards.

Crossing the road in deteriorating weather found the tide well out and a number of Oystercatcher, Curlew and Whimbrel calling plus singles of Grey Plover and Dunlin - with less traffic, few people and eyes shut the soundscape was rather wild and inspiring.

I'd hoped with so many Swifts reported from Posbrook and Blashford (100 and 1000 respectively) that the old swift-flicking site on the common might hold a few birds but sadly not and nor indeed any more Swallows.

Finally, one last scan across the harbour produced a Little Tern  fishing over one of the shallow channels of water - this a species which I thought lockdown would prevent me from seeing  this year.

Weekend 5 of lockdown and a mixed bag

 A stroll around prior to 'essential shopping' found two very noisy Peregrines and the first chance to 'engage with the public' for months and, with Chichester being out of bounds, this was ideal. And without too much 'non-exercise loitering' a few photos were possible. It wasn't until I downloaded them that I realised this male was ringed and within a few minutes GR responded confirming it as a four year old Chichester bird ringed in May of 2016. Result!!

A short but proper walk later found the Swan with cygnets, presumably hatched in the previous 24 hours but too hunkered down to count and two broods of Coot of five each. Whilst photographing Red Admirals hasn't been a problem this Holly Blue was the first to sit up this spring and this unidentifiable female Pipiza was a nice change from the commoner hoverflies. Andrena fulva and male Osmia bicornis were the best of bees.

A brief glimpse of one or two Peregrines, overflying Med Gulls, crows alerting to a very high Buzzard and Hairy-foots was it for 'stay at home Sunday'.

Edit A look out at dusk for satellites showed at least four bats presumably Pipistrelle spp.
And Monday , with five minutes at the FM carpark on the way back from the GP, saw Curlew, Whimbrel and the first Redshank of lockdown but well off patch so not countable!!

Another brief jaunt..

Sue and I spent the last week of April 1997 with friends in Cyprus, based in Paphos and with general sightseeing in mind and so a less than stellar list ensued. A drive up into the Troodos and a day in Nicosia plus outings around Paphos with relaxing, eating etc. I seem to remember a particularly good Indian meal not far from the hotel!!

Best birds -:

Alpine Swift 20
Bimaculated Lark 2
Black Francolin 2 a
Collared Flycatcher 1
Cretzschmar's Bunting 2
Cyprus Wheatear
Eleonora's Falcon 10
Great Spotted Cuckoo 6
Greater Flamingo
Little Crake 1
Masked Shrike
Pied Flycatcher 18
Purple Heron 12
Red-throated Pipit 4
Short-toed Lark
Squacco Heron 22
Wood Warbler 4
Woodchat Shrike

54 spp but I probably didn't log common species - first rule of birding; never go on holiday with non-birders!!

Out to the harbour..

Yesterday a longer walk than normal out to the harbour and common was pleasant but mostly birdless. Hoped for lockdown list birds such as Sedge Warbler, Reed Bunting, Swift and maybe Common Tern were all absent with just a heard-only Lesser Whitethroat. Invert wise a Small Tortoiseshell was the first this year. At home a Common Mourning Bee (Melecta albifrions) was presumably looking for its Hairy-foot hosts. The Peg roosted much to the chagrin of a bunch of Starlings who unsurprisingly weren't keen on sharing their ledges with a stone cold killer!!

Today a stroll up the field produced nothing although the singing male Whitethroat was song flighting from the same tree. On return the female Peregrine was calling which alerted me to the male and a third bird which the female chased off. Later, she was circling over the garden and mid afternoon perched on the church.

(Micro moth Adela reaumurella, Fly Anthomyia spp, first yellow iris, big noisy gulls)

Three day roundup

Monday was a stay home day with nothing other than a Tree Bee in the garden and a couple of Sphaerophoria hovers.

Yesterday, the usual exercise route produced the first three Swallows of the year, rather more Holly Blues and both sexes of Orange Tip, a few dock bugs (Coreus marginatus) and this female Andrena labiata. There were also plenty of these Tipula vernalis craneflies.

On the pond a pair of Coots had a few young but most were hidden in the reeds and a Great Black-backed Gull was resting but sadly, other than a few Med Gulls,  the blue skies were empty of interest.

In the evening a quick look at the night sky at 9pm showed the Starlink satellites passing directly overhead; after fifteen I gave up!!

By Wednesday the wind had moved round from a north-easterly to an easterly which meant the west-to-east hedge was no longer sheltered and insects were harder to find and with no new additions. This one of four Med Gulls (3cy) dropped in but departed immediately and the Coots appear to be feeding just four young. A male Brimstone was the first I've seen since lockdown.

Return to sun..

Female Andrena haemorrhoa, Dunnock, Peacock male Syrphus spp, blossom and Green Shield Bug above.


A return to nice weather after the last few days saw plenty of Peacocks out and feeding on dandelions in between bouts of 'dog fighting', a couple of Commas, another male Orange Tip and best of all my first Holly Blue almost the same colour as the sky. This female Andrea haemorrhoa was the only bee happy to sit up for a picture; the few Nomadas were particularly skittish.

This Dunnock below was the first I've seen since lockdown.

Things hotted up on the return with the low pitched 'kek-kek' of a female Peregrine alerting me to her presence - the sound of Peregrine interaction. And low and behold after a few hundred yards she caught up with a male - the two 'threw some shapes' before going their separate ways with the female still calling and setting off towards a Buzzard.

A minute or two later the gulls went nuts alerting to something not immediately visible but which turned into patch gold (or thereabouts!) in the shape of a Red Kite, the first since lockdown and only second here ever for me.
Also noted it was a garden tick for another birder in the area via HGB later in the day.

Extramadura.

Mid-April 1996 saw the 15th anniversary of Birdquest and, as with ten years earlier in Norfolk, saw a reunion on offer with a four day jaunt to Extramadura. My notes for this were particularly poor (too much cerveza!!) not helped with losing some of the nineties which were in loose leaf binders; seemed a better alternative than hard backed notebooks at the time but sadly not as secure. I guess those missing notes probably disappeared with a house move!!

Anyway, being a reunion saw a large group of us, in excess of 40 if I remember rightly. We covered all the usual sites within driving distance of Caceres, namely Monfrague, Trujillo and nearby plains.

It was interesting to sit  in a bar with beer and tapas watching Spaniards celebrating St George' Day; at this time I was ignorant of the relationship between Caceres and its patron saint St George going back to the 13th century and predating his adoption by us Brits by a century or so.

The first morning's outing saw us milling around the hotel's reception area waiting for the off. Time dragged and I decided to pop back to my room as I'd forgotten my hat. In the time it took to return forty odd people had vanished into thin air leaving me wondering where I could get a hire car!! Luckily the head count took place not too far from the hotel and they realised they were one down!!

Highlight was splitting into two groups, one for Eagle Owl and the other, my choice, for Red-necked Nightjar. Hopes weren't too high but luckily one bird came in and gave great torchlight views after some 'audible encouragement'.
Calls and songs here

Bird highlights of a total of 105 species (in bird/days) were:-

Black Stork 9
Great Bustard 41
Little Bustard 30
Black-bellied Sandgrouse 17
Pin-tailed Sandgrouse 10
Black Vulture 16
Griffon Vulture 100
Black-winged Kite 2
Bonelli's Eagle 1
Golden Eagle 1
Spanish Imperial Eagle 3
Montagu's Harrier 30
Goshawk 1
Iberian Magpie 30
Lesser Kestrel 300
Great Spotted Cuckoo 10
Southern Grey Shrike 1 now Iberian Grey Shrike
Red-necked Nightjar 1
Calandra Lark 140
Short-toed Lark 22
Thekla Lark 1 ( I think once we identified this one we gave up on Crested/Thekla!!)
Western Orphean Warbler 1

No change at the start of week four...

Today, first  time out for three days, saw grey skies following on from yesterday's continuous downpour but with little wind so quite pleasant for walking. On the pond no sign of any Shoveler but a Grey Heron was perched up photogenically on a fence post; no sign of last week's Moorhen chick, presumably gobbled up by cats, rats, gulls etc.

Nice to get a singing male Whitethroat with puffy throat feathers sat out in the open in the core part of the patch (unlike the two in the extension a few days ago) and just yards from the nearest house.

A slightly different route around the golf course gave views of more open water with three Little Grebes on show and fifteen or so Tufties, presumably from the pond, and more singing Reed Warblers; sadly no Sedge.

Insect wise poor although plenty of Common Carders, Buff-tails and Anthophoras (substantially more females than males). Again Nomada goodeniana was the only interesting species.

The female Peregrine is becoming less frequent both during the day and at roost unless out of sight on the far side of the building.

Lockdown patch range extension.

After three days being housebound. yesterday's walk saw a a longer outing in the hope of some different birds. Normally the nearby golf course would be out of bounds but today it was very pleasant to walk across the daisy and dandelion strewn grass and sit on a golfer's 'rest bench', soak up the sun and enjoy the sound of multiple singing Reed Warblers, a couple of Whitethroats and a heard only Little Grebe. The 'dry patch' Cetti's was still singing as was a second bird in the reedbed and the taller vegetation had three more singing Blackcaps.

Crossing the road and then dodging the numerous cyclists saw me perched up on a block of concrete embedded in the shingle hoping to add to the minimal lockdown mammal list with the addition of Harbour Seal, but sadly I couldn't find any. Nice to hear a few more Med Gulls and add some species to the lockdown list namely Shelduck, Oystercatcher, Curlew, Whimbrel, Little Egret and Sandwich Tern. A few other wader were too far out into the low tide heat haze to ID with 8x binoculars. On departure another Cetti's was calling close to two concealed fisherman - God knows what they were fishing for here - and a second whinnying Little Grebe.

The walk back produced mostly white butterflies, including one or more Green-veined and several scruffy Peacocks. Finally, a fresh male Orange Tip (nfy) was in the same spot as last week's female on the edge of Squirrel Wood.
Sadly, despite the continuing decent weather other inverts have dropped off with far less bees and hovers and no Bee Flies for the first day since they appeared.

Tale of two birds... Wallcreeper and Franklin's Gull

A Wallcreeper turned up near Worth Matravers in November 1969 and stayed until April the next near. It wasn't until March 8th that the opportunity to try to see this bird arose with a place in KG's mauve Morris Minor. This was the first since 1938 and only the sixth ever so was a big draw for fourteen year old me and of course for everyone else!!

Sadly, being not only pre-digital but also pre-owning any camera, I've no pictures but there is some delightfully dated black and white footage from the BBC here. Embarrassingly, after seeing this bird I checked out the seabirds and added Guillemot to my life list!!

Ten years later saw a visit to India and Nepal, mostly aimed at trekking part of the Langtang valley and this saw a total of seven Wallcreepers over four days with a maximum of four on one day.

May 2010 saw, as part of a Bulgarian Birdquest, a visit to Trigrad Gorge specifically for Wallcreeper. Some youtube footage of a bird at the gorge in May 2015 here. On arrival there was no sign of the bird until one of the group, a tail end Charlie, got a brief glimpse of it. The same happened later with another birder again getting the briefest of glimpses. Lunch ensued with a sound-background of Serins. One last attempt at the Wallcreeper before we needed to leave for the long drive to that night's accommodation saw us walking back through the tunnel and praying for a miracle. With time running out I took a walk down hill away from the group for a call of nature before the long drive only to find myself face to face with the target bird just yards away on the roadside parapet!! It flipped up onto the adjacent cliff face and performed nicely for everyone (see below).

A short visit to northern Spain in January 2011, specifically for Wallcreeper and Snowfinch, was a flop being defeated by fog and another slightly longer visit in May 2014 also failed to connect to either of these species with ice and snow closing roads into the Pyrenees; the only day the Pyrenees were accessible was a 'peas souper' with roadside Water Pipits being almost the only birds.

And so, onto Franklin's Gull.

Two or three weeks before the Wallcreeper jaunt in 1970 a Franklin's Gull was found at Farlington by Dave Billet but, being a potential first for Britain, ensured some research was needed before claiming it. A lack of grapevine, certainly amongst my teenage peers, meant that it was March 1st before I heard about it. On a lone visit to Farlington I bumped into a breathless birder whose name has long since slipped my memory. When asked if I'd seen the Franklin's I shrugged and said no, thinking to myself ' What the hell's a Franklin's'!! At this stage I didn't own a North American guide and had only seen one North American wader, a Lesser Yellowlegs at Chichester GPs four months earlier. Luckily, I met another birder a little later who put me right!!
Even more luckily the first birder and one or two others had relocated the bird on the St John's playing fields and I was given the opportunity to look through the only telescope present. The bird was again here a few days later and then on the 23rd was on the lagoon bathing giving much closer views. It was seen by numerous people over its twelve week stay.

British Bird account of this occurence here

Texas, 1983, mentioned in an earler blog entry,  gave the opportunity to catch up with species again with five pink-flushed adults at the famous Brownsville dump whilst searching for local specialties, Chihuahuan Raven and Tamaulipas Crow; another fifteen or so Franklin's were seen later on that trip.

Winding the clock forward to 2014, 44 years and 7 months later, saw Rob Hume finding Hampshire's second Franklin's Gull at Ibsley Water, Blashford on 18th October but sadly not seen again in subsequent days. Ten days later I flipped a coin between doing the Blashford gull roost or visting the nearby harrier roost. The latter won but in the end were no-shows whereas the Franklin's was found in the gull roost for the first time. November 1st saw large crowds waiting patiently and the bird eventually showed towards dusk but views through other people's scopes were less than satisfying. Finally, on the 17th I decided on setting up early afternoon in Tern Hide to get better views but as the afternoon wore on it became noisier and more claustrophobic as more and more people arrived. I gave up and went around to Goosander hide for some peace and driven by the urge to find the bird for myself. Luckily, only one other birder had the same idea and that, fortunately, was the finder Rob Hume!! With gulls arriving he pointed out a Little Gull and shortly after I picked up the Franklin's and, whilst not too close,  gave decent scope views in nice light and on calm water.  Mission accomplished and still the longest gap between individuals of a rarity to date.

Locally - photographing Wood Pigeons - things are getting desperate.
And the Peregrine is still roosting early evening in the same spot and never on the same brickwork as day-roosting; definitely a creature of habit.

Thursday and Good Friday

Yesterday saw the warmest weather so far and not too much to add other than Nomada goodeniana, a female Andrena that I think was nitida but little else.
Female Peregrine was just visible at dusk but absent early morning.

Today, Friday, she was perched up nicely in the morning sun so I incorporated her into my exercise walk and shopping. Shame not to be able to loiter with a tripod and maybe pop the converter on!!

And a brief walk round the pond gave this first of year Myopa florea and Common Carder Bee, Osmia bicornis and the last couple of Shovelers, all below.


Edit And the 'living gargoyle'(!!) was back in place before 7pm

One for sorrow...

Yesterday was a pretty dull day wildlife wise although the weather is holding up which helps to keep the spirits up.  No queuing at local shops  on the way by.

Few butterflies, just Small Whites, Brimstone and Peacock. Rather more Epistrophe eligans and first Syrphus spp plus new bees Andrena haemorrhoa and Osmia bicornis.

Bird wise a Magpie stripping plant pot liner from the garden for its nest and probably fifteen or so in the refuge field and just a single flyover Med Gull.

Today, little change although my first Willow Warbler was calling from the island and gulls alerted to a soaring Buzzard, but still no kite; surely some of the downland birds should cruise over the city? Yesterday saw a little flurry of Ospreys into the county with a bird near Gosport being the closest.

Another first today was a female Orange Tip although other butterflies were absent with the first half of the day still but overcast.

(Andrena fulva, Epistrophe eligans, Vespula vulgaris, Lesser Black-backed Gulls, 2cy Herring Gull)

Start of third week lockdown..

No sign of Mrs Peg today, much reduced gulls on the pond, just two Shovelers and another big drop in Tufted Duck numbers. At last a singing Dunnock was added to the list and another M'ipit flew over but otherwise the skies were bare.

Invert-wise my first Speckled Wood (here below snapped with phone), my first few Common Carders and a couple of Nomada spp bees, possibly fucata as they are cleptoparasites on A  flavipes the most obvious mining bee here. Helophilus pendulus (f) was a new for year hover.

Maybe take camera and macro lens and a specimen pot or two tomorrow if this weather holds out.

EDIT The female Peregrine WAS roosting and preening at 7pm watched through the scope although this one below was a bird at Chichester some years back.

And a bit of WTE info from Roy Dennis here

Urban Peg....

There's been a flurry of Peregrine sightings around the lockdown patch in recent months with mostly singles but a pair on one occasion and also birds day-resting and indeed roosting on the local church. The night before last saw a bird coming in an hour before dusk flushing out a number of Starlings and pigeons whilst today a bird was perched up and visible from the bedroom window. My authorised walk today took me round and stood just below the bird, an adult female although maybe not too adult, say 3cy ish. It did enough stretching to show that sadly it's not ringed. Shame it's not really permissible to go round with scope and tripod; it would be a real frame filler!! Still, if it sits up like this again and the weather holds out, I might be tempted to try for a few photos.

Frustrating to hear that yesterday's eagle, IOW bird G324, was again seen north of the haven by a few people and that AR also had Red-rumped Swallow at Posbrook. I definitely chose the wrong place to live. Those back in Sussex, and with a change of wind, are now getting some sea-watch action unsurprisingly; just how long can you loiter under COVID19 restrictions.

March 1983 Texas

Winter 82/83 saw a potential crossroads in life and in an attempt to either clear my head or make a choice I decided that a last minute birding trip might help!! And so I found myself with 5 or 6 others on a trip to Texas, out of Heathow and in to Dallas and Houston, with a now defunct company called Wingspan. Sadly, it wasn't possible to take advantage of the airlines offer of £200-250 to travel on a later flight due to overbooking; if I'd been travelling solo I would have bitten their hand off!!

Eventually we arrived at Houston where we were met by Jon Dunn who was to prove a great leader, birder and all round nice guy; he was still actively working on the first edition National Geographic guide and we even got to see some proof plates brought along to evening log calls in the LRGV hotels by other members of the team.

We visited the southern pine woods, the coast at Galveston and travelled south  down the coast, through the King Ranch and on to the Lower Rio Grande Valley and then returned back the same way notching up 259 species on the way.

The oddest birding was on the now defunct 'rail crusher' buggy at Anuhuac which sadly failed to get us Black Rail but then again maybe they'd all been flattened under the giant wheels of the buggy on previous evenings!!

A few highlight species with numbers in bird/days
Sadly, being pre digital and with no long lenses, photography was just a few site photos only.

Altamira Oriole 4
American Golden Plover 550
American Kestrel 60
Baird's Sandpiper 47
Black Skimmer 1,000
Broad-winged Hawk 460
Cactus Wren 1
Cedar Waxwing 1,100
Chihuahuan Raven 26
Chimney Swift 1,300
Clay-coloured Thrush  2 plus nest
Eastern Meadowlark 700
Ferruginous Hawk 1
Franklin's Gull 23
Greater Prairie Chicken 6
Greater Roadrunner 3
Great-tailed Grackle 15,000
Green Kingfisher 1
Northern Harrier 39
Hooded Oriole 2
Thayer's Gull 1
Lark Bunting 8
Least Sandpiper 400
Loggerhead Shrike
Pauraque 12
Plain Chachalaca 60
Red-billed Pigeon 3
Scaled Quail
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 196
Sora Rail 1
Tamaulipas Crow 50
Upland Sandpiper 100
Whooping Crane 22
Wilson's Phalarope 267
Yellow Rail 2

Israel 1 25th March to 15th April 1979

Birding in a garden whose species list is no more than 30 after 54 years seems a little fruitless. The nearest White-tailed Eagles aren't that many miles away assuming the IOW birds haven't all dispersed and Ospreys must overfly the city once in a blue moon but yesterday's 'skywatch', literally 20 seconds looking past the net curtains produced just two Sparrowhawks powering along about 200 yds apart. Locally, a couple more hoverfly species.

Anyway, back to Israel.

A trip across Europe in 1978 was followed by a strong desire to get some more foreign birding in the next year. Late in the autumn an envelope dropped through the door containing a slim, grey Sunbird brochure with just a few tours and the odd black-and-white photo. One, of swirling raptors, caught my eye embedded in tour details for Israel. At 23 I'd never given Israel a thought, still considering all the opportunities for great birding closer to home. But then again the species list, sheer numbers and the realisation that Israel wasn't that far away was really exciting and luckily MM and NJL thought the same.

And so in the last week of March we set off on the five hour flight out of Heathrow and in to  Tel Aviv. On the flight the passenger next to me told me he was a Sieff family member and settled down to get 'lubricated' although he did buy me a couple of brandies!! Whoever he was he declined my kind offer to let his chauffeur drive me Mark and Nigel to Eilat!! On arrival he zipped through immigration and was met by his driver while the rather scruffy three of us queued to get in and on our way to an overnight stop at a Youth Hostel near the Yarkon river.

Awake before first light the next day; the excitement of 'first birds' was fed by unusual bird calls and songs. Both large kingfishers were found quickly along the river plus our first Graceful Warblers and bulbuls.

We wandered through a market picking up the first of many felafel plus fresh fruit before the long bus journey down to Eilat with lots of noisy holiday-bound Israelis. On arrival local ladies were hawking accomodation and we found ourselves whisked off to a very pleasant three-bedded room with clean shower room and settled in for the next few days birding around the resort.

We spent plenty of time around Eilat but with a small hire car we were able to visit the furthest south, Nabq,  Sharm and Ras Mohamed, the Negev and Dead Sea sites such as Massada and Ein Gedi. Sadly, we didn't have time for the northern sites such as Mount Hermon, Hula etc.
We eventually returned to Tel Aviv on the bus for the return flight home.

Just a few selective counts of some of the 189 species we saw with approximate bird/days.

White Stork (4000)

Steppe Buzzard (6000)

Black Kite (1150)

Steppe Eagle (360)

Pallid Harrier (9)

Sociable Plover (1)

Caspian Plover (7)

Lesser Crested Tern (45)

Lichtenstein's Sandgrouse (6)

Pin-tailed Sandgrouse (45)

Crowned Sandgrouse (200)

Black-bellied Sandgrouse (5) flushed by two Golden Eagles

Baillon's Crake (6)

Blue-cheeked Bee-eater (18)

Temminck's Lark (17)

Bimaculated Lark (1)

Another larger British 'crew' spent more time in the country, time in the north and split up to twitch a few hard to get specialties such as Sinai Rosefinch and Green Heron scoring about 60 species more than us.