Little Tern, Ferry Meadows CP, 26th April 2014

On Friday the weather forecast for yesterday was pretty poor, with the threat of almost continuous drizzle, so I rushed round like a mad thing and mowed the lawns – this resulted in a rare thing nowadays, a Saturday afternoon ‘off’ in the Peterborough area. As it turned out the weather was much better than predicted, so I decided to go and have a look at a small ‘trip’ of Dotterel that had been reported at a traditional ‘stop-over’ spot, just south of the city. When I arrived at Black Bush Fen there where a few folk looking over a vast freshly planted peat field. The Dotterel, two females and a male, were hunkered down in the furrows at the far end, making for acceptable telescope views but rendering photography of any form virtually pointless – still nice birds to see, particularly as we missed them on last years ‘Big Year’.

With time on my hands I decided to continue on to Ferry Meadows in search of the reported Black and Little Terns – the latter surprisingly being a Peterborough Bird Club (PBC) recording area tick for me. I took the back way into the country park and approached Gunwade Lake from the ‘wrong side’ – but still I managed to pick out, first the summer plumage Black Tern and then, fishing in front of the swanky new cafe, the Little Tern. I walked round to the boat club side and, in the company of a couple of other Peterborough birders, spent a happy hour watching the birds and catching up with events on my former ‘patch’. I did manage a few acceptable record shots.

First the adult summer Black Tern

This particular bird showed a striking ‘two-tone’ dark throat and belly – not something I’ve previously been aware of. I assume it’s to do with the stage of transition into summer plumage – or perhaps it’s that I’ve just not looked closely enough in the past!

I told you that photography was pointless – but just for the record, Dot.. terel, two females (unusually they are the brighter ones of the species) and a male

Last word (photo actually) goes to the Little Tern, a PBC ‘tick’

An excellent afternoon out on the ‘old patch’ and three nice birds into the bargain.

Red-rumped Swallow, Felbrigg, 12th April 2014

Our good friends Neil & Eunice are back in the UK for three weeks and are staying with us for a few days – they arrived yesterday tea-time, along with the first bit of sunshine we’d seen all day. After a welcome cup of tea I suggested we go for a walk to Felbrigg before dinner, Jane and Eunice decide to wait for the bread to come out of the oven ( a good decision!) and so Neil and I set off. We did the usual thing, stroll down the lane, through the ‘back gate’ and follow the new path through the woods to the lake – nothing of great interest on the way just a couple of Chiffchaffs, Nuthatch and an Egyptian Goose. As we enter the Alder carr, by the edge of the lake, we can see Sand Martins low over the water – I lift my bins and almost immediately a Red-rumped Swallow flies through my tree-obscured vision! We both get confirmatory views before the bird is lost in the trees. We hastily re-locate to the dam end, where we get cracking views of the bird amongst the swarm of Sand Martins, in the evening sunlight. A quick call to a few locals and to Jane, asking her to post it on Birdguides,  ‘job done’ – we then have that agonising wait for the first birders to arrive, hoping that it doesn’t decide to fly off. Fortunately it stays – Jane & Eunice arrive with my camera and I manage to get a few shots before we all head back for a celebratory glass of Rioja.

An adult, showing a distinct white spot in the centre of it’s back – something I’ve noticed in other birds in Europe

A very nice Felbrigg ‘tick’, only my second in Norfolk and a promising start to the birding long weekend.

Common Buzzard, pale phase, Brecks – April 2014

Last week, on our way over to Pat’s birthday party, we stopped off in the Brecks to look for Goshawk. After about half an hour of scanning the skyline and only seeing Common Buzzard, Red Kite and Sparrowhawk, a young Goshawk appeared over the trees in the company of a couple of buzzards. It soon landed in the trees and apart from one further brief encounter, it was lost from view, the Common Buzzards however remained. In amongst the Common Buzzards was a particularly pale ‘pale phase’ bird which, at a glance, showed a number of plumage features similar to Rough-legged Buzzard – pale head, white upper tail coverts, etc. Interestingly there was a report of a ‘possible RLB’ in the same location, on the bird information services, the day before.

Here are a couple more distant shots of this interesting bird:

With a ‘regular’ Common Buzzard, showing a distinctive dark ‘tux’ band on it’s belly

A couple of shots showing the white upper tail, white head and pale fore wing

and this shot, showing an almost complete lack of carpal patches

Check out the illustration in the 2nd ed. Collins of the ‘juv. Light bird’ – ‘extremely pale variants (mainly N Germany-S Sweden) are very odd looking..’

Post Script. A minor landmark was reached this week, following the publication of my ‘Pied-billed Beauty’ blog – my 15,000th view! Thank you one and all, keeping viewing. 

Pied-billed Grebe, Rutland Water, 9th April, 2014

We were at grandson Patrick’s third birthday party when the news came through about a Pied-billed Grebe on Rutland Water. PBG is a 3* rarity from North America, with only a couple seen on average each year in Britain  – I’ve only seen a handful of them down the years. Party festivities concluded, with the finale being a sit in uncle Josh’s police car (he wasn’t under caution you understand!), we head off to the yacht club at Edith Weston, park up and walk the 200 yds or so to the edge of Rutland Water, where the bird is showing nicely in open water. In practically full summer plumage, it looked a real beauty with it’s black chin, bone coloured eye-ring and…pied bill of course! Although the light was fading quickly I did mange a few digipics before it eventually swam into dense cover by the bank.

Baikal Teal, Fen Drayton RSPB, April 2014

Baikal Teal which, as the name suggests, originates from north east Siberia, has only been recorded in Britain as a genuine vagrant on a handful of occasions – until recently that is. Then, just like London buses, they come along in ‘threes’! First there was the ‘for one day only’ bird at Flamborough last April, next there was the much watched mid-winter bird at Crossen’s Outer Marsh, Lancashire (see my blog, 6 December – ‘Banks Baikal Bonus’) and then last Saturday another turned up at Fen Drayton RSPB. We had a spare hour or so on Friday afternoon so decided to go and look at it. Although rather distant it was a gorgeous looking thing – complete with black ‘side-burns’ this time, and which added to it’s wild credentials by disappearing over night! It was later relocated elsewhere on the vast net-work of lakes that are part of the Ouse Washes ‘Living Landscape’. Of course it’s just possible that these are either escaped collection birds and/or the same bird (certainly in the case of the last two records) – but with the arrival of another bird in Belgium at the same time as the Fen Drayton bird, who knows? We’ll just have to wait now whilst the relevant rarities people adjudicate on their authenticity.