Day at the dump

Abhorrent weather conditions on Saturday and I very nearly got back in to bed at 6am having had little more than four hours' sleep and hearing the rain splattering against my window. Glad I gritted my teeth and got through it though. Steve Arlow kindly invited me along with him and Rich Bonser for a new experience for me - actually spending time on a dump looking at gulls.

Despite the absolutely disgusting conditions it turned out to be a successful few hours until a puncture curtailed our efforts. Highlight was a juvenile Glaucous Gull which unfortunately didn't perform closely for the camera, but three Caspian Gulls (two first-winters and a third-winter) showed at point-blank range and we also had a few Yellow-legged Gulls. Light was terrible for photos though.

 Big juvenile Glaucous having just swallowed something large and nasty.

 2cy cachinnans with pale, almost whitish scaps.

A pathetically small 2cy cachinnans with tiny bill.

A couple of leucistic birds concerned a Herring and a returning Norwegian-ringed Great Black-backed that had Richard unnecessarily excited, having first seen it on the dump last year. Also a couple of presumed Glaucous x Herrings (or perhaps just pale Herrings).

Showy Glaucous Gulls in Peterborough

Several thousand gulls at Dogsthorpe on New Year's Eve including the second-winter Iceland Gull again and two juvenile Glaucous Gulls. I was photographing one thinking it looked a bit more robust than the previous day's bird, not noticing the second in the images until I reviewed a few of the shots. A quick look through the 'scope and there they were, side by side - quite amazing!

Post-Christmas wingers

After a visit to Dogsthorpe on Saturday morning with little more than brief views of a 2cy cachinnans to show for the effort, I was surprised (and a little gripped!) to hear that Jonathan Taylor had scored both Iceland and Glaucous Gulls on the tip yesterday. Popped over this morning and was pleased to find both were behaving extremely well on the predominately frozen Star Pit. It's been a while since I've seen any gulls on the pit there, let alone good ones, and so it had a rather pleasant 'old school' feel to it - I remember ticking Caspian Gull here about ten years ago!

I've seen quite a few white-winged gulls in Peterborough over the years, but this is the first time that I actually had two in the same 'scope/camera view. I've had two on the same pit before, but never side-by-side!

Juvenile Glaucous

2cy Iceland

Glaucous + Iceland

Not much else today save for a confiding pair of Stonechats at Baston Fen, where there was also a Barn Owl hunting (but not SEOs). 85 (eighty-five!) Red-crested Pochards and 23 Shoveler on my patch. Another glorious winter's day.

Penduline Tit

This is the first Penduline Tit I've seen in Britain since the flock of four at Rainham in winter 05/06. I wasn't going to bother going but on hearing it was showing well, decided it was worth the hour drive down this morning. And so it proved: though it would go missing it times, it eventually showed to within 10 metres in beautiful golden afternoon light.

Quick trip to North Yorks

Imagine opening your curtains one morning and seeing this hopping about in the road!

Popped up to North Yorkshire in the ever-delightful company of Dan Pointon to have a look at this gorgeous Eastern Black Redstart (P. o. phoencuroides), which had been busying itself about a housing estate on the north side of Scalby for a few days. I can't entirely remember why I didn't see either of the 2011 birds, though I suspect the reason was something list-orientated - not bothering to travel for a subspecies (or similar).

Male Black Redstarts are seriously brilliant birds and this one, with its brick-red breast and belly sharply demarcated from the black face and throat, grey forehead and brownish upperparts was one handsome beast. At times it looked remarkably Common Redstart-like but both behaviour and structure were much more reminiscent of Black Redstart. I'd actually go as far as saying this is one of the best-looking birds I've seen in Britain and the fact that it's not a species in its own right shouldn't detract from that.

Unfortunately behaviour didn't match appearance and while it did show incredibly well on a few fairly brief occasions, it was utterly restless and kept zipping off in to gardens. It appeared to be conducting a fairly loose circuit, ranging over a good few hundred metres (at one point it stormed off down the hedgerow of an adjacent field and didn't come back for a couple of hours). As such it proved a frustrating subject for the lens but there are some decent pics floating about the internet now. Here are a couple of my best, more on Flickr as always:

We also popped up to nearby Cloughton Wyke where we found the Richard's Pipit in its favoured field south of the Hayburn Wyke Inn. A really big and obvious bird that called frequently, it was also typically mobile and wary.

I suspect that will be it for the good birds now this year, unless someone turfs out a surprise passerine. Come to think of it, has there ever been a better year for a late, late autumn hyper-rarity? The mild weather seems to be encouraging a number of common migrants to attempt to winter here - think Swallows, Whinchats and two species of warbler on a Leyton traffic island, for example. A Siberian Accentor would be ideal, as would a Black-faced Bunting - though I'd settle for a Pine!

Black Brant hybrids

My guess is that these birds are probably well known to Norfolk birders but, not spending the timethat I once did in the county as teen, I've lost touch and so it was a pleasant 'surprise' to come across them on the saltings at Holkham. I guess one of these birds is responsible for recent reports of a Black Brant in the Burnham Overy area.

Peru album on Flickr

I've put a bunch of Peru photos on my Flickr page.

Along with a small party of journalists and tour operators, I was fortunate to participate in an eight-day trip to Northern Peru in mid-September, hosted by PromPeru and Green Tours (www.greentours.com.pe). The seven days spent birding was far too little to appreciate this incredibly diverse region fully and I intend to return in the not-too-distant future. I couldn't recommend the place enough, and Wilson Diaz (of Green Tours) did a fabulous job of organising our birding.

A couple of photos, lifted straight from Flickr. Head to my page for more:

A full report of my trip will appear in Birdwatch magazine in the not-too-distant future, and likely on the BirdGuides website too.

Desert Wheatear

Arriving from the second half of October onwards, Desert Wheatears tend to mark the conclusion of the autumn period in Britain. There have already been three this early November, including the extremely tidy male pictured above at Reculver, Kent.

With Sunday free and having not seen a DW in Britain since the female I ticked while dipping Chimney Swift on Holy Island in 2005, I met up with Rich and headed down to Kent for an hour or so in the company of this bird. The light was grey and flat but the bird made up for it, despite the seemingly endless procession of lens wielding admirers parked flat on the beach about ten metres from its favoured rocks. This species has a habit of being pretty fearless and so it proved; though not bothered by humans, it wasn't quite as ridiculous as the Lowestoft bird looked! You'll notice that the DW is facing left in every shot - all thanks to a light but persistent southwesterly.

More wheatear pics on my Flickr pages:

Having had our fill and taken enough photos to add to the ridiculous total already taken by others, we headed down to Dungeness for the afternoon. The best bird was a brief first-winter Yellow-legged Gull but we did speed by a Great White Egret, which was mincing around in the usual corner of ARC Pit.

Brief (shite) Desert Wheatear vid:

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Porthgwarra, 24 October 2014

Comfortably the highlight of my British and Irish year. What a cracker!

Unfortunately not the easiest bird to photograph despite being pretty tame, it generally sat partially (or totally!) obscured and thus 'clean' shots were very difficult to obtain.

Left London on news at 09:30 on Friday morning, arriving at PG around 14:30. Bird last showed a short while after 17:30. It appeared to be feeding quite avidly on caterpillars (not sure of species) and generally seemed quite healthy, though it did spend one ten-minute period sat out on closing its eyes late afternoon. I was pretty surprised that it wasn't there on Saturday morning, but Friday evening was cold and clear - perhaps it simply moved on?

Black-and-white

Found by Hannu today - a lovely first-winter male in da Ponte. Cracking bird, terrible photo. Otherwise I appear to have hit a mental and physical brick wall. Saw a flock of White-rumps and a Pec bombing around the village. It's still blowing an absolute gale; the novelty is kind of wearing off now. Plane cancelled today, and not looking good for Friday.