Tuesday 30 October 2018

New records?

Yesterday's Curlew got me thinking and looking in to old records. Plus I missed off Nick's Firecrest from the totals and Jo Taylor managed to squeeze a Yellow-legged Gull in on BSL without telling any of us 3 days ago.

So the park is on 141, just one away from the record - 142 set in 2012 and repeated just last year. But believe it or not, 141 was the old record set in 1983, the next biggest year list was 139 in 1984. This is the sixth year since 2011 we've hit 140 or more.

Can we get one more for the park to equal and one more to pass it?

The evidence suggests anything is possible, the species list seen before in November and December is quite impressive. I'll colour code it, black being occurred, blue being most likely of the list due to frequency beyond 4-5 records;

Red-necked Grebe
Slavonian Grebe
Shag
Bewick's Swan
Whooper Swan
Bean Goose
White-fronted Goose
Scaup
Kittiwake
Caspian Gull
Short-eared Owl
Little Owl
Bearded Tit
Yellowhammer

Obviously birds are unpredictable, so I'd like to think we have a chance at least of a first for the park like;

Great Northern Diver
Ring-necked Duck
Lesser Scaup
American Wigeon
Green-winged Teal
Dartford Warbler

And again long awaited one off's from the 80's like;

Red-throated Diver
Long-tailed Duck
Red-breasted Merganser

He's hoping for an exciting end to the year and being available to see whatever it is.

7 days later

I saw the Yellow-browed briefly on Saturday, but had little time and with the work party the next day, followed by family commitments, I've had no further chances.

During the work party a group of c70+ Fieldfare went NW, a Green Sandpiper flew over.

Well saying that I went yesterday to help my good friend AJ, but could not stay before it showed again, there was a Chiffchaff lurking too, Water Rail calling nearby. Right on school pick up Trevor called to bring my attention to Roger's picture of a Curlew at Lea Farm Lake. "Aaaaargh, I'm on my way" I said deserting my wife, running home with the shopping and heading there.

Barely 20 minutes later and I'm watching a fairly comfortable looking at a lovely Curlew on the East bank slightly back beyond the track. A Peregrine was chased by Lapwing and headed off East, a female Goldeneye was my first this autumn.




Until this morning, so I arrived early and had a stab for Great White Egret, first at Teal scrape, then John joined me for Lea Farm Lake - we now call it 'Lake' instead of G.P. so now I'll be using 'LFL' as the acronym.

4 Little Egrets went over towards DP, a Peregrine over low and landed in the big Alder in the NW corner, no Curlew though. A smattering of Shoveler, Teal and the same female Goldeneye.

Back down to Sandford and it wasn't long before the Yellow-browed Warbler was calling loudly above our heads in the usual Willow.

Saturday 27 October 2018

what can I say

An obvious lack of blog posts doesn't mean I haven't been out....I haven't been out much and had little time to blog about it.

But then Wednesday that all changed, I could have made late night slot to report on it, but with the little darling re-appearing today I tried to grab a shot.

So Wednesday 24th October, I arrived in the West lay-by Sandford side, by the yellow gate, moments before I'd debated in my mind if I'd do the car park field for a late stab at a flyover Ring Ouzel, but opted for a Sandford check for ducks.

As I reached down to tie up the laces on walking boots, a Yellow-browed Warbler called loudly and was clearly not 70 feet away. This amused me a great deal, having worked my but off 5 years ago trying to find my first. And now my second didn't wait for me to get my jacket on.

It continued called nearby and I'd barely got poor views of it in the Willow by the Oak nearest to the lay-by, before I put calls out to a few regulars then pushed out the 'mega' WhatsApp message. Brian arrived and after just a few minutes of anxiety it began calling again, then showed in full view for a minute in a Hawthorn by the dead Alders up the path slightly.

It kept others waiting, before vanishing until Derek arrived and heard it over by Sandford Copse. here it got more mobile and then returned to it's original Willow.

Today it was back - obviously never left in fact, but today I got precious records shots unparalleled in birding circles....