Lynford Arboretum

December dawned bright and windless today, perfect winter birding weather. However my daughters had an event to attend in Norwich which required a drop off at Easton at 9.45am and a pick up at 1pm. That 3 1/2 hour window put the coast out of the question but Lynford Arboretum seemed to fit the bill. I had seen 3 Two-barred Crossbills here some weeks ago so it was Hawfinch that I was most interested in, not the much debated winged-barred Crossbill that is exercising minds and blogs on the internet. The excellent new BTO Bird Atlas shows a dramatic decline in Hawfinches especially in East Anglia so recent reports of up to 12 at Lynford would be a spectacular sight. Checking my birding records going back to the 80's the biggest flock I've ever seen was 7 at Epping Forest, followed by a 5 at East Wretham and the rest just ones and twos.
I arrived at Lynford to the calls of a few Common Crossbills that were coming down to drink at the muddy pools in the walled garden. The wing-barred Crossbill had been seen half an hour earlier but not since so I walked straight along the path across the bridge to the horse-paddocks, the favoured haunt of the Lynford Hawfinches. There was a small group of birders here waiting patiently for there had been no sign of any Hawfinch so far that morning. A Kestrel holding vigil on the electricity wires that stretched across the field was being blamed for their absence. A pager message alerted us to a report of 9 Hawfinch by the bridge barely 150 yards away from us, although there was no visible birder presence, and neither had there been any verbal communication from any one who might have been standing there. Myself, and John and Judy Geeson , ambled towards the bridge to get a better view of the trees that lined the stream but of birds or birders there was no sign. Some Common Crossbills flew in to the top of a poplar and posed briefly before heading back to their more usual coniferous habitat. Suddenly I picked up a chunky finch in bounding flight with broad white wing bars heading towards the large trees in the middle of the paddock, a Hawfinch! The bird, a pristine male, perched in the very top of one of the trees, almost shining in the winter sunshine. Returning to the group of birders, there were 2 more birds in the second tree although a little more obscured. A male Bullfinch glowed brilliant red in the same tree, easily visible to the naked eye so intense was the colour of his breast. The Hawfinches moved on and it was time for me to leave too.
 I was outside much of yesterday sorting out soggy sheep in persistent drizzle but the home patch was quiet. After 5 weeks it was time to take the rams out from the ewes. For two rams this involved some deft footwork avoiding their charge, grabbing them around the chin as they came to a halt and quickly applying a halter to lead them home. The third ram is a much more docile beast but was ironically harder to catch as he stuck with his ewes that constantly moved away from us as we approached. Amazingly no ewe had acquired a blue rump from the change in raddle colour of 17 days ago which indicates they all fell pregnant on the first pass and means a lambing period of just 3 weeks of disturbed nights for us next March/April instead of the usual 5. It was also the fateful time to sort out which lambs we're keeping on and which are ready for the freezer.
After doing the sheep I put out our two trail cameras that have been languishing in the house for the last few months. One went out on a post by the scrape, another set to video out by a mink raft on a dyke where we've previously captured photos of otter and water vole. Most of the time I get photos of a Mallard swimming one way and then swimming back but you never know what could be out there.

Glaucous Gull, Lowestoft

November is my least favourite month. It always seems to be relentlessly grey and damp and, with the nights continuing to draw in, no promise of spring around the corner. The birds too can often be disappointing. The excitement of autumn migration has gone and many of our wintering birds have yet to arrive in any numbers. Today at least dawned bright, sunny and windless.
After taking sheep to Norwich Livestock Market and returning home with a bag of Suffolk walnuts from one of the men helping in the wash out area(!), I took a stroll around the marsh. There was nothing special, but it was pleasant enough. Skylarks and Meadow Pipits were passing overhead, 2 Marsh Harriers were calling to one another over next doors marsh and our wintering flock of about 40 Teal have returned to the alder wood. The scrape is just about to overflow its edges thanks to the previous weeks rain but the only birds making use of it this morning when I passed were 3 Common Gulls. Our other marshes are getting increasingly wet too with standing water on several.
Whilst sorting out the hay for my January lambing ewes, the distinctive wink-wink call alerted us to a flock of about 60 Pink-footed Geese heading south down the valley.
After lunch I headed to Lowestoft and found a small disconsolate group of birders by the side of the Hamilton Dock. The Glaucous Gull had not been seen since 8.30am when it had apparently been flushed by a Common Seal! The Hamilton Dock must be the most unattractive birding site in Suffolk with a security gate guarding a high concrete sea wall to your left, a noisy engineering yard behind you, Lowestoft town centre to your right featuring a multi-storey car park and the fish dock, currently in the process of being demolished ahead of you. It is always cold whatever the weather with the classic "lazy" North Sea wind cutting right through you. Despite these down sides, the dock has an excellent reputation for attracting rare gulls especially in its heyday when Lowestoft still had a fishing fleet, the most famous being the 1977 Franklin's Gull and the 2006 Ross's Gull.
After 10 minutes I moved off to Ness Point where the Purple Sandpipers were showing very well, pushed up to the railings at the point by the rising tide.

I had a look at the waste skips at the back of Birds Eye factory which were attracting some gulls but drew a blank. I headed back to the dock just in case and found Ricky Fairhead scanning the harbour. Within 5 minutes Ricky picked up the Glaucous Gull coming in from the direction of the town centre but it promptly dropped in out of view amongst the boats to our right. I had come armed with the last crust from my kitchen so within seconds we had it on the water and on the tiny tyre-strewn beach below us giving us tremendous views and an excellent photo opportunity.

Shorelarks and Parrots

I've had friends over this weekend who had certain avian and cetacean targets in their sights so I took on the duty of local guide, heading first to the metropolis of Great Yarmouth hoping to see the Shorelarks there. Great Yarmouth is not exactly my favourite place in Norfolk. Tatty and faded with garish and noisy amusement arcades along the "Golden Mile" and suffering from high levels of deprivation it hardly appeals. Having talked it down (and before the locals complain), the Time and Tide Museum is excellent and well worth a visit and hidden amongst rows of modern terraces and industrial units is a surprisingly well preserved medieval protective wall complete with towers.
The Shorelarks were reported to be on the beach north of the Britannia Pier so we parked near the Imperial Hotel, crossed the North Denes, avoiding inevitable dog mess and detritus of empty beer bottles and rubbish, and  joined sea-anglers, dog-walkers, metal detectorists and the odd meandering drunk on the shore. A family of birders were watching the Shorelarks feeding unconcernedly on the shingle amongst all this activity, only flushing if someone went particularly close to them and quickly settling down again. Shorelarks to me are an enigmatic bird coming from the Arctic tundra, wintering just in small numbers, seemingly in different places each year and never guaranteed from one year to the next so there was a curious juxtaposition of these especially wild birds in this distinctly human semi-urban environment.
Yarmouth sea-front is also an excellent place to see Mediterranean Gulls, which seemed to be the commonest gull on the beach whilst we were there.
From Yarmouth we headed northwards along the coast stopping at various points from Waxham to Happisburgh in the hope of seeing the Humpbacked Whale. The visibility was not good and our quest failed but there were a few sea-duck such as Eider and Common Scoter passing by and the odd Red-throated Diver on the sea.
My friends' other target was the Parrot Crossbills at Holt Country Park. Heading there rather late in the morning we arrived to find a gathering of slightly despondent birders and no sign of the crossbills. Luckily within 10 minutes of our arrival 4 birds flew over the car park and in to some nearby pines and eventually 10 birds revealed themselves. Looking through branches and leaves and past trunks, viewing was awkward at first but when they flew into a pine tree near the road they became much easier to see and ultimately gave excellent views. Bill size and structure varied amongst the group but some were very impressive indeed with notably bull-necks and large heads. We nipped up to Cley for lunch and I just had time to find the Black Brant and see the Pale-bellied Brents with the Dark-bellieds on the Eye Field before having to head home.

Stock take

The rams had been in with the ewes for 16 days so the time had come to change the raddle colour on the rams chests. Raddle is a heavily pigmented oily paste smeared between the rams front legs that marks each ewe as the ram goes about his work. As ewes come in to season every 17 days or so in the autumn changing the colour allows us to see which ewes are now hopefully pregnant and also tells us roughly when each ewe is due to lamb. Walking across the marsh to deal with Colin, the Romney ram, the Stock Dove flock lifted off from the neighbouring recently ploughed arable fields. From 88 the flock had grown to 110 plus, a sizeable flock in Norfolk terms if the new Norfolk Bird Report 2012 is anything to go by. Wood Pigeon numbers, in contrast, seem to have fallen considerably from last winter but that could be because there are no oil seed rape crops in the immediate area this year.
After dealing with the rams I took the dog for a walk in to a distant corner of the patch by these arable fields in the hope of a something new. It was late in the day so many birds were heading to roost but there were 9 Fieldfares feeding on the wide uncultivated margins, looking particularly splendid as they always seem to do this time of year and a flock of 50 Linnets in the fields themselves. We surprised a Chinese Water Deer which stood motionless staring at us as we approached before he sped off across the field with my Jack Russell in hot pursuit. It suddenly stopped and turned to face its pursuer and the dog, clearly confused by this abrupt change, came to a sudden stop too. This was much to my relief as I've seen the damage a buck Muntjac inflicted on a small dog and this deer had a very fine set of tusks on him too. As I turned for home a Barn Owl glided silently ahead of me along the dyke edge, a sight to savour now they have become so scarce in the area.

Humpback Whale at Waxham

At last a weekend had arrived and I was free to do some birding at last. The problem with this time of year is that most of the daylight hours are spent at work so there is barely any time to get round even our marshes let alone get to anywhere else. I had also spent 2 days on a course in Redditch during which my husband had seen 2 Med Gulls and 5 Black-tailed Godwits on the scrape, along with a Jack Snipe on two occasions and several Common Snipe. The best I had done previous to this was a flock of 12 Ruff which was at least a site record.
Opening the bedroom curtains this morning it was pleasant to see that the usual Woodpigeons normally perched on the electricity cables across the marshes had been replaced by a flock of 88 of the much daintier Stock Dove. As Stock Doves seemed to have been declining locally this was a great sight. On a follow up walk around the marsh there seemed to be plenty of birds on the move with a small flock of Fieldfare heading determinedly west, groups of Starlings milling across the marshes, a large flock of Linnets on the nearby arable fields and Skylarks calling overhead. Three Marsh Harriers seem to have taken up winter residence and a skein of Pink-footed Geese passed down the valley. The scrape was quiet and we decided to turn the pipe up to allow more water to accumulate and flood on to the grassy surrounds. I was considering an afternoon walk along Haddiscoe Island when news of the reappearance of the Humpback Whale at Sea Palling had me missing lunch and heading northwards instead. The first day of the whale had been agonising as I was at work only 11 miles from it but unable to escape. I had been condemned just to read Tweets of how fantastic it was, so I was glad to have the opportunity to catch up with it (I hoped)
I arrived at Sea Palling in murky weather. The morning's sunshine had been replaced by low cloud and intermittent rain and there was a winter chill in the air. The whale had not been seen for a while and its last showing had been brief and distant. I joined 2 other cetacean searchers in scanning the horizon. Tim Allwood turned up and explained that when he had seen the whale previously it was on show almost continuously as it fed amongst a swirl of gannets. With just a few gannets passing through things were not looking hopeful. Penny Clarke arrived and joined the watch but after 40 minutes I decided to look further south with the plan of stopping at several points down the coast so drove first to Waxham for a quick scan of the sea there. Parking at the Shangri-La track I just took my bins and walked up on to the dunes. My gaze first fell on a close-in Red-throated Diver and then, just to its left but some way behind, a black shape loomed out of the water, the Humpback Whale! I rushed back to the car, fetched my scope, texted RBA and enjoyed distant but still good views of the whale as it repeatedly surfaced and dived surrounded by its gannet entourage. Even at a distance the whale was mightily impressive and I was thrilled to see it, my first proper big whale ever. It was easy to locate, you just had to look for the gannets, wait for it to blow and then the back and dorsal fin would follow. On occasion I even saw the tail flukes flip out of the water as it dived deeper, an amazing sight.  I was joined by Penny Clarke, Duncan Mcdonald and another birder and we all continued to watch and enjoy the whale as it moved slowly north and away until it was literally on the horizon.  A Bonxie added a little extra spice to the day and small groups of Starlings were regularly picked up making their way in off the sea. All in all a very satisfying day!

Semi-palmated Plover on Hayling Island

It's been a while since I've posted as I've only recently returned from my annual pilgrimage to Scilly. Unfortunately not recently enough as my 2 weeks coincided with what could be described as a rather quiet spell, more later.
I was originally due to fly off at 1641 last Saturday but with an impending storm, needing to be back at work on Monday and also the thought that I could get to Hayling Island for a certain small American plover I changed my flight to 0841. The plane was a little late but eventually we boarded. As the engines started up I thought I could hear a distinctive whining noise from my hand bag. Pulling out my pager I glanced at it and in horror read the words Scilly: White's Thrush St Agnes in the Parsonage. Here was one of my most wanted birds just a mile away and I was about to fly away from it. I briefly considered ripping off my seat belt and running to the exit screaming "let me off" but decided that might not go down to well for future flights on Skybus. On arrival at St Just I headed straight in to the terminal and asked if they could get me back to Scilly asap. The answer was "well if you'd like to wait we might get you back by lunchtime but we can't guarantee it and the weather is closing in". Weighing up my options I stuck with Plan A and reluctantly headed eastwards in a desolate mood not helped by a growing migraine. Popping paracetamol I made slow but steady progress in to Dorset impeded by half term holiday traffic and headed in to Hampshire in  deteriorating weather. I eventually reached Hayling Island at 2.30. Miraculously as I drove across the causeway my migraine cleared but my next problem was that I only had a UK road atlas and a pager message giving a postcode and grid reference to find the site. A direct call to RBA  (huge thanks guys) soon had me pulling up at the right place where I could see a distant line of birders huddled on the edge of an exposed spit.
I joined the line just as a heavy rain squall arrived driven in by blustery winds. The plover had not been seen and the conditions at that moment were appalling. The rain eased a little, though not the wind, and I moved position in the line to get a better view of the gathering waders on the sand spit, and also found a friendly face in the crowd in the form of John M.
It was time to start scanning the flock, hood up and hunched over my scope to shelter the eyepiece from the rain and left hand firmly on top of my scope to counter the vibration from the wind. I scanned the flock of waders, Ringed Plovers, Dunlin and Sanderling, repeatedly from left to right and back again. The flock continually shifted with small groups of birds taking off and landing in a different position and others flying in from further back. For 45 minutes or so it was just Ringed Plover, Ringed Plover, Ringed Plover but then Ringed Plover, Ringed Plover, hmmmmm....... In to my scope, although right at the back, appeared a distinctly small plover. My knowledge of Semi-p Plover ID was not great, my research on Scilly having been limited to a quick glance at a photo of this bird on someones laptop and a read of the Collins field guide. At the distance and in the conditions this bird was showing at,  plumage features were hard to see but what I remembered from the photo was the size difference and how cute the Semi-P plover looked compared to its neighbouring Ringed Plovers. The bird in front of me was small and definitely cuter looking than the Ringed Plover it stood next to, and just looked different. This was good old-fashioned jizz birding at its best.
I turned to my companion and asked how good his ID skills were. The answer was "well I've see the photo" followed by "why, have you got something interesting?" It turned out that he too had picked out and was pondering on the same bird and it was also apparent that some birders to our left were also getting excited about something. John went over to enquire and came back saying "it's the one that's running around". Sure enough, my bird had at that time been running around and was indeed the Semi-palmated Plover, a huge relief. As the news spread along the line it was good to be one of those giving directions to other anxious birders and not the one panicking as you desperately try to pick a bird out before it potentially disappears. It was also a day when having invested in a good scope with an excellent zoom also paid off as the light was murky to say the least. The plover obligingly came closer and closer, and eventually was almost the nearest bird of all of them, giving surprisingly good views allowing its plumage features to be seen too. After a good length of time enjoying the bird the entire flock took flight and even then the plovers small size stood out as the flock whirled past us.
It was time to head home and I discovered how cold and tired I was. The effort of keeping my scope still left my hands struggling to undo the clips on my tripod legs but as I walked back to my car a warm glow of satisfaction grew inside. My first new bird of 2013 and what a cracker it was! My tick drought was over.

Wonder of the Day and other moths (or the wonder of Twitter)

Last night, browsing through Twitter, my attention was grabbed by a tweet from @andymus1 suggesting that it would be a good night to try and catch a Merveille Du Jour. Splendidly named and beautiful in appearance this is a moth I've always wanted to see so following his advice out went the trap. Fortuitously I checked the Norfolk Moths website to see if they occur in my area (which they do) but noted their comment "Infamous for sitting just outside of the trap at dawn, rather than in it". Fortunately dawn at this time of year is at a relatively reasonable time so at 7am as the sun was rising I wandered out in to the back garden in my dressing gown and wellies and scanned the grass around the trap. My gaze was first caught by the bright crimson of a Garden Tiger, a moth more of high summer than mid-autumn:

Followed by the characteristically folded wings of two Angle Shades moths:

And then, almost unbelievably but unmistakeably, the mythical beast itself, a Merveille Du Jour (literally wonder of the day) perched in the grass by the trap just as Norfolk Moths said it would be. It is indeed a beautiful moth in the flesh, intricate black and white patterns on a lime-green background with black and white striped legs.

The trap itself had accumulated a good collection of Daddy Long-legs and caddis flies but also a selection of moths typical for the time of year, lots of Beaded Chestnuts, Large Wainscots, Lunar Underwing and Large Yellow Underwings but also this splendid Green-brindled Crescent:

And the grey but exquisitely patterned Blair's Shoulder-knot:

With others such as Pink-barred Sallow, Red-line Quaker and White-point I managed a total of 27 species of moths, not a bad haul for a Tweet.
As I was collecting the trap a single Brambling had flown over but this initial promise of migrants failed to deliver anything further. Hopeful for a patch Firecrest (there seemed to be a mini-invasion just a few miles away) I only managed to see 2 Green Sandpipers on the scrape. Bird experience of the day came from a Grey Heron which I spotted poised in stalking mode away from its usual favoured watery habitat. As I watched, intrigued to see what its quarry would be, it suddenly lunged forward and then lifted its head with a squirming mole in its beak. Constantly juggling the mole, it walked to the nearest dyke and dunked the unfortunate creature several times into the water although never for long enough to do anymore than rinse it. Eventually the mole went limp and was duly swallowed, a good but probably unusual meal for the Heron.