Portesham Pallas's Warbler

I didn't need any convincing yesterday to go and see the Pallas's Warbler currently over wintering at Portesham in Dorset. Pallas's are my favourite of the 'regular' sibes, I saw several at Spurn and Dunge in the early 00's - some exceptionally well.  But in the ten subsequent years of birding this patch I have seen just one, that was in 2007 and for about twenty seconds!  So it was high time I saw another, even though seeing what in my head is a late autumn specialty, in March, could well play havoc with my inbuilt birding body clock!

It was actually dead easy. James Mc and I parked up in Portesham shortly before 10am, casually strolled up to where we thought we should go, and there it was...

Count the head stripes - that's a seven-striped sprite alright

Showing it's Wood Warbler-like white underparts

The yellow tones to the face also reminded me of Wood Warbler colours. Often looked bull-headed too.

In coming - I just love those stripes!

Check out it's arse! Surprised I managed this with my bridge camera.

What a stunning bird, and mind blowing views.  No stiff necks looking at tree tops, it spent virtually the whole time feeding at eye level, and for the twenty minutes we were there it remained in view for about 17 of those.  It was so easy to follow as all the trees and bushes were completely bare, and it shared the surrounding cover with only a couple of Robins, Dunnocks, one Goldcrest and a Chiffchaff (which looked huge compared to it!). It really seemed to love this bush, the first bush on the right...

It did move into the small copse to the west and across the track south of this bush. But it did seem to like this bush, there were plenty of small flies buzzing around it which may have explained why.

The rump really is amazing.  It is virtually impossible to see when perched, but the moment it flies it's like a light bulb. It's even obvious when you just glimpse it flitting about with your naked eye at a distance.

My advice to anyone thinking of going for this bird, go.

Here's a few short videos that I'm sure will tempt even the most stubborn...

I can confirm to you all that without doubt seeing a Pallas's Warbler is an excellent cure for the winter birding blues - almost as much as a male Northern Wheatear (they can't come soon enough!).

As we were Portland way, I couldn't leave without some diver and grebe action, so we headed to Sandsfoot Castle for a quick scan over a nice calm Portland Harbour...

Looking south to Portland

This proved a very worthwhile stop, as a scan from the Sailing Academy, and through some builders fencing a little way back east along the road, showed a pretty decent selection.  For us fairly loyal patch birders, Red-breasted Mergansers are exciting enough as they are scarce on our patches, it was great watching the males displaying. 

My previous visits here have shown the Black-necked Grebes to be in one or two pretty tight flocks, but today the 12+ present were spread out everywhere; a four, a few pairs and singles. Most were in or coming into summer plumage which was nice, unlike the four Slavonian Grebes - three of these were in winter plumage with the fourth just starting to get dusky down the front. There were stacks of Great Crested Grebes too, all of these were in the far north east corner of the harbour (where one of the Slavs was, another was towards Ferrybridge with two together in the middle of the harbour).

Four Great Northern Divers were all spread out singletons, but the closest diver was a stunning Black-throated Diver. It was quite a hefty one to be honest, looked quite thick-necked and bulky, so am pretty sure it's the one that was showing well from the southern shore of the harbour over the last couple of days.  Sadly my photos aren't quite as good as Pete's...

A blurry phone-scoped Black-throated Diver in awful light!

One fat bird!!

With work looming it was time to head back west. But on the way home we called in at Abbotsbury for a look over the Swannery...

The light wasn't too bad when I took this, but the sun soon came out which made viewing more difficult

We were really impressed with the amount of wildfowl here, heaps and heaps of Pintail in particular. All the Pochard were sat out on the bank probably wondering where their lunch was - no wonder they are so rare here now, they are clearly getting lazy! In contrast the Tufties were busy getting their own grub out on the water, and among these were the the two wintering Long-tailed Ducks and at least one and a half Scaup. I say one and a half because I know there's a hybrid ScaupxTuftie here, and I couldn't rule this out on one of the birds - probably because it was the hybrid.

As ever it's not just the birds that make a twitch, but the company. James M is an ace twitching partner as we are both as laid back and relaxed about it as each other - and neither of us actually like twitching!  Especially the crowds.  We really are bad twitchers, and will only twitch a bird if the chance of seeing it is up around the 100% mark, plus there has to be other birds around to see as well. In general we also have a similar taste in birds and what we think is worth going to see, well that's with the exception of big white things. James seems to think all egrets may as well be Little Egrets (just smaller or bigger versions), and all swans are Mute Swans just with different coloured bills...

Brixham Twitch

We (James M and I) have wanted to pay a visit to the White-billed Diver for several weeks, but work, weather and other things kept getting in the way.  Last Tuesday though, after a painfully congested drive down, through some scarily intense rain, we arrived at our destination...

Although all looks calm and tranquil, there was a pretty strong SW wind blowing

Within minutes we were shocked at the quality of birding.  Let's be honest, divers are usually 'telescope birds', but no need for a scope here for much of the time!  It was like being in a foreign country, with Great Northerns and Black-throats swimming around the harbour like its an every day occurrence! Just amazing stuff...

Great Northern Diver - one of about 25 in the harbour!

Black-throated Divers - saw about half a dozen of these

And then of course there was the star bird, which appeared just inside the entrance to the inner harbour soon after our arrival...

Next to the GBBG

It quickly (and it really could move under water!) came closer though...

 

And then EVEN closer....

What a superb bird!  I saw the Hayle bird which really was a highlight in my birding life, but this was even better!  Obviously its whopping ivory bill really is striking, but so is the whole feel and shape of the bird.  Great Northern Divers are big, but this is bigger, and chunkier, and seemed to swim and move about with real power and ease. And it really did give point blank views as it fed along this channel...

Welcome to Brixham indeed!

This photo was taken when it had swam quite some distance away from us...

Yep, that's the White-billed Diver!

With a couple of Red-throated Divers further in Torbay, it was a 'four diver day' for us!  Then there were the grebes.  Although we missed the Red-necked that was showing inside the marina, we had one just around the corner from the AstraZeneca. Also from here, a Slavonian Grebe flew in and landed close in, and later two Black-necked Grebes drifted in and then back out of the harbour...

Distant photo - but the distinctive 'fluffy bum' shape still obvious

Also from the AstraZeneca car park we saw the lingering Iceland Gull, we never got close to it but still had good views.  It's a stunning bird, but did seem a bit dim! All the other gulls were following fishermen, or swimming around just off the shore, but the Iceland Gull spent the entire time circling the same white bouy just staring at it! I guess it was feeding, but it just seemed a bit 'Tim nice but dim' to me!

Sadly we had to get a move on, as I was working in the afternoon, but we couldn't resist the Decoy Lake drake Scaup on the way home. In reality it wasn't quite as exciting as it should have been, as it spent the entire time asleep and partially hidden underneath vegetation on the far bank, next to a drake Gadwall.  Here we were also hoping to make our three grebe day into a five grebe day, and soon enough a Great Crested Grebe popped up. The hunt for Little Grebe failed to fined any, but two Black-necked Grebes were somewhat of a surprise!  I didn't manage any photos of them as they stayed on the far side, but the local attention they attracted ensured there are some photos other places, namely here... http://teignbirds.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/thanks-for-grebes-steve.html

All we wanted now was a Little Grebe. And it took a drive alongside the Axe once home to find one, and it really took some finding in the rough conditions. We managed it though, four diver species and five grebe species in a day - if only a Pied-billed Grebe was somewhere in the south west we would have had every diver and grebe species on the British list in a day! 

So another twitch - and the perfect twitch too!  Got the bird within minutes and saw a very impressive back up cast all showing really well. A very enjoyable twitch.

As always though, it's not just about the birds.  It was great to meet the White-billeds finder, Bill Macdonald, who gave a face to face account of how exciting this find was!  Thanks for the help Bill, pointing us to the right sites for the right birds.  Also thanks to Mike Langman who kindly dropped us a line as we were making our way down, helping us connect with the birds and informing us exactly where to park (and for free!). Also, thanks Mike for quickly spreading the news of the Decoy Black-necked Grebes to all interested parties on our behalf. Lastly, thanks to James M, who is officially my twitching companion, and acted as chauffeur for the day.

Gotta get out and do some patch birding now, hopefully will actually see some birds too...

I Did What!???

Sorry for the delay in writing this post, I have had a very busy weekend! But yes the rumours are true - I have been birding in Devon NOT on patch.....

Last Friday, I had to go to Exeter, but thought I'd make a bit of a day of it! So I was at a very cold and frosty Ide by 07:40...

Up to 70 Redwings flew over, as did a Golden Plover. A Chiffchaff showed in an adjacent hedge, and at 08:05, a Hawfinch dropped out of the sky, landing on a fairly distant tree for about half a minute before flying off west.

This was the trees and field I was looking over...

...basically where I was told to go and where I've seen them before

But after a further hour, I hadn't had another sniff of Hawfinch. I was going to give up, but decided to try a little further down the lane just before I headed off....and there they were!!!

Hawfinches suddenly started calling from above me...

You may need to turn the sound up for this video!

There were three chasing each other around, one flew one way, another went another way, but one stayed put for a short while, allowing me to fire off this quick pici with the Lumix...

Cracking birds!

I left here, popped in to Exeter, then carried on south - I was heading for Torbay.

Broadsands was my first stop, here I met up with Mike and Josh.

A perfect day for it

In the bay were seven lovely Black-necked Grebes and a Red-throated Diver. We then headed for the 'bunting fast food restaurant' where up to 14 Cirl Buntings where showing, although very jumpy thanks to passing noisy dog walkers. Also here a couple of Siskins were feeding in alder trees with Goldfinches.

Cirl Bunts with a Reed Bunt and a Chaffinch

I then headed for Berry Head, where a tame Lapland Bunting had spent the last couple of days. I'm pleased to say it was still there! It really was tame, with dogs, children and prams passing within feet of it!

I didn't like to get too close to it as there were other birders and photographers there, but these are my best pics with the trusty Lumix...

What a bird! It is clearly a first-winter, and almost certainly a male



And here's a short video; it would have been much longer if a passer-by hadn't started talking to me!!

After another meet up with Mike, a look off Paignton failed to show the Long-tailed Duck, but there were singles of Common Scoter, Red-throated Diver and Black-necked Grebe. It was then time to come home and go to work.

Well - I really enjoyed myself, great to go birding in this part of the county again. I can see a few other off patch day trips in the months ahead...

I did no birding at all during the weekend, just plenty of wedding planning, a day at work and a three hour gig. This morning though I've been back out on the patch, and have seen a few interesting birds. Expect another blog post later or tomorrow....