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.

Male Two-barred Crossbill – Lynford Arboretum

Spent this morning at Lynford Arboretum, a well deserved birding break from relentless digging on the allotment! As I pulled into the car park a group of birders had their cameras and scopes pointing skyward – up to five Two-barred Crossbills were apparently feeding in the nearby pines. Two-barred Crossbill breed in Russia and rarely occur in Britain, except following an eruption – as occurred last autumn ( see posts for 20 & 22 July, 2013 ), when they usually over-winter..  Although reasonably close, the small flock which also contained several regular Common Crossbill, were buried deep inside the tops of the trees, only appearing periodically on the outer edge of the canopy. I watched the birds, several males and a female, for half an hour or so before deciding to look for some of the other Lynford specialities. I crossed the entrance track and by the visitors hut I heard and then saw two more Crossbills – one was definitely a male Two-barred. At the feeding station there was no sign of the elusive Hawfinches so I strolled down to the lake to view the paddock – no sign of any here either. A brief diversion along the stream trail produced nothing of particular interest so I headed back towards the car park. By the monument a singing Firecrest eventually gave acceptable views then it was back to the feeding station to stake out Hawfinch – apparently a female had been seen just a few minutes after I’d left. Another half hour or so wait and a small flock arrived in the Hornbeams nearby the feeders – what looked like at least one male with three or four females. Other birds of interest around the feeding station included Redwing, Brambling – a fine spring male, Siskin, Marsh Tit and a Treecreeper feeding on the fat balls!

A couple more grab-shots of two different male Two-barred Crossbills

..and a male Common Crossbill for handy comparison

One of a group of four or five Hawfinch in Hornbeams, near the feeding station

A nice array of late winter birds, together with a fly-over Wood Lark, making a truly excellent mornings Breckland birding

Common Crane over Titchwell

Spent the afternoon at Titchwell – lovely weather and some great birding. The whole experience evoking more than a touch of Spring.

As I pulled into the RSPB access track I nearly knocked down a knot of birders staring up the road towards the village. I got out of the car, only to learn that I’d just missed a Crane flying over, apparently the bird was still just visible.. but not to me! Having already seen Crane in Norfolk this year I shrugged it off, parked up and started to walk down the track.  I’d barely got 200 yards and the Crane did another fly-past, over the Fresh Marsh!

I strolled down to the sea to scrutinise the Scoter flock – distant and distorted by heat haze, I just managed to make out half a dozen or more Velvet’s, as they made their short-hop flights. Also on the sea were Red-breasted Merganser and Goldeneye. Next I spent an hour in Parrinder hide looking over the Fresh Marsh. The light was terrific and even ordinary species looked extra ordinary. There were plenty of Black-headed Gulls loafing about but only a handful of large gulls. On closer inspection one of these appeared to be a yellow-legged variety. Although the bird was resting on the water, the bright white head, set off by a small black beady eye, long sloping forehead and a long shallow bill – giving the bird a rather gentle expression, strongly suggested cachinnans. Once on land, the whole drawn-out structure of the bird and the detail of the wing pattern confirmed that it was indeed a 3rd winter Caspian Gull. I returned to the centre, having missed out on Water Pipit, but seeing Bearded Tit, Spotted Redshank, Ruff and hearing Cetti’s Warbler, I was more than satisfied with my afternoon. 

Driving back along the coast road I added Barn Owl at Burnham Overy Mill to my afternoon tally – for some reason they’ve been very scarce in Norfolk so far this year. As I was passing Gun Hill there was still enough day light to have a quick scan of Overy Marshes. A few Pink-feet, Shelduck, Curlew and there, in the distance, the unmistakeable form of a quartering Short-eared Owl. Buzzard and Marsh Harrier were soon added to the list, along with Grey Partridge in the field by the road. Finally the distant outline of another Buzzard, chunkier though, with a complete dark breast band, sitting atop a fence post. As it swooped down to the ground and back, the noticeable white and dark under tail pattern confirming that this was the juvenile Rough-legged Buzzard I’d seen a few weeks ago.

Even the common species, like Northern Shoveler, looked terrific in the afternoon sun!

and Common Snipe..

Careful scrutiny of the large gulls produced this 3rd winter Caspian Gull

A great afternoon’s birding with a real touch of spring – bring on the migrants! 

With the decision to make an earlier than expected return home to the UK, we modified our route back from the mallee to take in the Southern Highlands, south of Sydney, in an attempt to secure a few more Australia trip ticks, including hopefully another couple of ‘planet earth’ ticks. We arrived at Barren Grounds national park early, where it had rained over night. No sooner had we turned onto the entrance track when Dan said ‘stop’ – there on the grass in front of the rangers house was our first target, Pilotbird – a species I’d only seen briefly once before. So called because this species has a strong association with Superb Lyrebird and acts as a ‘pilot’ to it’s whereabouts – it looks not unlike a young European Robin. A short distance up the track, a small flock of Gang-Gang Cockatoos was a welcome addition to the list. Then on to the ‘main event’ of the morning, a search for Eastern Bristlebird – a species of very restricted range, on coastal heath, along the coast of New South Wales. Within 50 yards of the car park we’d heard and secured fabulous views of this, often secretive, species – a ‘lifer’ and another towards our trip target of 300. With reasonable views of another heathland species, Beautiful Firetail, we were ‘on a roll’, so decided to go in search of another potential ‘lifer’, Red-whiskered Bulbul – a species introduced in the suburbs of Sydney, back in the 1880’s. A drive around the streets of Port Kembla soon produced the goods and, to round things off, a brief stop at the cliff-top site of Hill 60 Park secured us Australasian Gannet and our final ‘tick’ of the trip, Kelp Gull -taking our overall trip total to over 300, including over 30 Australian ‘lifers’. Not a bad total for a family-oriented holiday and leaving me within striking distance of 500 for my Australia list!

Pilotbird – looking not unlike a juvenile European Robin

A welcome addition to the list – Gang-gang Cockatoo

Prime target of the visit to Barren Ground NP, the usually secretive Eastern Bristlebird

Not a great picture but nonetheless a real bonus – Beautiful Firetail

Red-whiskered Bulbul – an introduced species from Asia

And finally, Kelp Gull – last bird of a great morning’s birding, 300th for the trip and a fitting end to five weeks memorable birding in Australia

The plan was to bring the Australian leg of our holiday to a close with a return trip to Mallee country – my third visit but a ‘first’ for Jane. We travelled through the upper Hunter, taking in the Goulburn River National Park, before making the 400k trek to Lake Cargelligo – gate way to Mallee country. With temperatures above 40 degrees and swarms of flies the birding was unusually difficult and our first evenings visit to this unique habitat was proving to be an energy and moral-sapping event – until that is we came across the water-hole! Over the course of the next 24 hours we had outstanding views of over thirty species of bush birds here, including most of the areas specialities. Here are some of the species using the water-hole or seen nearby:

First, Restless Flycatcher

Diamond Dove, a difficult species to catch up with

Male Black Honeyeater drinking, with Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater in the background

Crested Bellbird – more often heard than seen

Gilbert’s Whistler, a mallee speciality – here a male is drinking alongside a White-eared Honeyeater

A Mulga Parrot and Common Bronzewing – we saw more than thirty of both species

Speckled Warbler

A splendid male Red-capped Robin

Southern Scrub-robin – another mallee speciality

Splendid Fairy-wren

Brown Songlark

To finish, the common but curious Tawny Frogmouth