Hawfinch Again

Went back to Bramfield again this morning. Arrived around 0930, and found quite a lot of birders loitering around the church gate. William had seen three Hawfinch earlier in an oak at the back of the big garden opposite.
Seemed to be a lot of bird activity this time, with singing Goldcrests, Tits and my first Nuthatches of the year. Wandered down the road to look at the oak a bit more closely and noted more Nuthatch, a Great Spotted Woodpecker and a lot of corvids and Starlings. The main target here actually was one of the Firecrests and it did not take long before a very bright crest flew out of the evergreen shrubs in front of us before vanishing deep into the hedge.
I then went back to the church to search the yews and holly before ending up in the playing fields to join some of those I was with yesterday.  We chatted for a bit then unexpectedly a Hawfinch flew out over the church and low over our heads before heading off to the big woods west of us. No idea where it came from  as no-one by the gate saw it.

I then called in at Rye Meads for a couple of hours. The water levels on most of the reserve is very high, good for ducks, including my first Herts Shelduck of the year, but luckily the northern lagoon is being kept virtually empty. The many rocky islands and shallow pools are ideal for waders (and also more ducks) and  I found three Green Sandpipers. Not much else of note, the Kingfishers were not seen and I had hoped to locate a Chiffchaff. Many other birders were trying to find up to three Bittern, but the many reed beds are not all that easy to search, and the birds move around a lot.

Hawfinch

There has been a small flock of Hawfinches at Bramfield over the last few days, in and around the churchyard. I finished work as usual this morning and popped down for an hour or so.
I arrived a few minutes late-just after 2pm as one had been perched high up in the limes but had just flown off. William was present so we had  a chat while waiting. Saw my first Red Kite of the year along with a couple of Buzzards, as well as three Bullfinch. A flock of Fieldfare were around, but apart from a few Greenfinches and tits there seemed to be little activity in the church.
After around 40 minutes, I noticed a large dumpy short tailed finch fly from behind the church and on to the south west. Seen enough over the years to know it was a Hawfinch, but despite waiting another forty minutes in deteriorating light, we never saw one return. The only bird of note was a calling Little Owl from across the playing field.
No sign of any Firecrest, and although a Chiffchaff was heard I  missed that too.

Whoops I made a boo boo

A bit windy this weekend, and it seems that little is being reported.
Did a bit of shopping this morning and went for a drive around the villages west of Stevenage. Apart from a few corvids, a couple of pheasants and some very low flying Skylarks, hardly anything was showing in the wind.

Have been going through last weeks images and found a cock up.
The 'Ring Bill Gull' that Colin and I were photographing is a well marked Common Gull. The black bill band is a bit thin and weak, though the large chunky yellow bill and the rather pale grey mantle are superficially Ring bill like. Bit too much white in the wing tip flight shot too. Guess it never came back from when it flew off after all.

Great Expectations

Sunday looked to be very good on paper, with a lot of potential down in Hampshire. Did not go quite to plan.
We arrived just outside Hordle, where the wintering juvenile White Tailed  Eagle had been seen again after a short absence just after nine, and found a small crowd. It was extremely cold, barely above freezing (and was to remain that way most of the day). After waiting some time, we headed off to Angel Lane, another favoured spot but despite another wait, and one or two others scouring the immediate area we decided to head off to Milton and await news.
Milton had four Lapland Buntings in a stubble field. Did not know the field was so big....
Found a Greenshank among Dunlin and Turnstone which was nice but never managed to get an image of it.

Scouring the field edges I picked up a lot of Skylarks, some Reed Buntings and Meadow Pipits. Just as we were leaving we were told the Laplands had been seen in the eastern hedge before flying out into the middle of the field.

With no news of the Eagle we went off to the New Forest at Burley where we hoped to connect with the Great Grey Shrike we had seen last year, plus hopefully Woodlark and Dartford Warbler. Despite the sun, it was still very cold and exposed on the high ground and a search of the area failed to find anything of note.
Next stop was the Titchfield Haven area and it's Red Breasted Goose. Not familiar with the area and knowing it was ranging over several miles of coast we first tried an area near Hook which turned out to be a holiday home park. Some of the nearby 'roads' were little more than narrow tracks and with no other information we headed off to the Haven and parked. Found out the geese were in a field near the holiday homes and it was a couple of miles walk along the cliff top. Checked the area on satellite maps and still cant figure out an easy way of getting there.
As a last resort we headed off to Gosport and it's regular Ring Bill Gull. Arrived to see a pretty good adult Ring Bill fly off into the sun with a Common Gull. Hung around for a while and eventually noticed it had snuck back in and was sitting on the water. Flew off a couple of times but always returned to the same bit of the boating lake.Ended up with a few decent images, including some nice flight shots.

Salvaged something out of the day. Heard in the evening that the Eagle had been seen early afternoon perched in a tree for a bit, and it has also been seen a couple of times today from Angel Lane.

Amwell

Managed to get down to Amwell for the first time in several weeks. Absolutely freezing, barely above zero.
Got the drake Pintail quite quickly, and the other regular ducks soon followed. Gull numbers seemed a bit low, and with the frozen mud there were no waders apart from a few Lapwing, and virtually no small birds to be seen.
After a while, the I managed to locate the drake Mandarin on the island-it swam out briefly tailed by a female before returning.
With no Smew visible I thought I'd head up to Tumbling Bay, but got distracted by calling Siskin in the old picnic area. Counted a good 50, along with a few tits, but no Redpolls were present. Up at Tumbling Bay there was nothing much at all, just a small number of the commoner ducks. Ran into Bill, Barry and William on the way back and had a chat before going along to Hollcross Lake. Thanks to Julie and her scope had great views of the three Red Crested Pochards and three Red Head Smew.
We all met up at the watchpoint  before many left for the waxwings down at Stanstead St Margarets.  The rest of us eventually found two more Red Heads and a fine drake Smew at the far southern end of the main lake.
Not long after the cold got to me and I retuned home.

Tucking into lunch the Blackcap put in an appearance again.

Blackcap

Came home from work early, as is usual for a Friday. While finishing lunch I happened to look out at the feeders and noticed a male Blackcap. Of course as soon as I turned round he was off. Ran up to get the camera and waited but after a long time I assumed he had flown off further down the road.
Nearly an hour later he was back, down among my pots of Lilies, but as soon as the camera came up it was game over. Waited a further hour before the light dropped but no further sign.
I get Blackcaps most winters-invariably males from the continent but usually only one or two sightings-which with the limited amount of time I spend watching the garden probably means they are visit most weeks.
While waiting, I had  a pair of Great Tits, three Blue Tits, a pair of Blackbirds, a Wren, the usual Robin and pigeons and several Starlings.

Larid Fun

On Thursday, Birdwatch Magazine editor Dominic Mitchell found an interesting gull on the tip adjacent to the RSPB reserve at Rainham. He immediately identified it as Britain's first Slaty Backed Gull from the western Pacific. However his initial images caused some concern due to the apparent paleness of the bird.
A number of birders saw the gull on Friday, and confirmed the identification, though the bird did not seem to be as dark as expected-somewhat between Yellow Legged and graelsii Lesser Black Backed instead of almost black. Naturally this dictated our Saturday destination.
Rainham are very good, and opened up two hours early at 0730, and by the time we arrived just after 0800, parking was limited to the approach road verge (they also opened up the normally closed road by the railway). It was a bit of a slog along the Thames footpath due to the wind but we eventually arrived to find around a thousand birders lined up on the bank along the fence. I managed to find a spot in with a group from Belgium and stared scanning. Some one then fainted prompting urgent calls for a doctor-and eventually an ambulance arrived.
Did not take long to find a good candidate first winter Caspian Gull, and soon after a number of Yellow Legged Gulls were found, several first winters and and adult. Had a bit of a scare when i saw an all white bird with bright red legs , but it soon became apparent that it was the well known leucistic Herring Gull bearing the ring number SH1T.
Over the course of five hours we found one or two birds that could have been Slaty Backed on colouration, but structurally they were all wrong and were either large pale Lesser Black Backs or very dark Herring/Yellow Legged types (the light was poor and viewing through the fence and vegetation added to the difficulties in judging colour). One did look very good, but it was largely hidden from view and we were not able to determine what it really was. Every now and again I would scan the flying throng with my bins and one or two birds were seen with a wide white trailing edge, but the requisite wing tip pattern was never seen.
After showing people some images on Surfbirds, someone got very excited about a dark headed Lesser Black Back and as in the nature of these events a number of others became convinced it was the Slaty Backed but we were able to rule it out on size and structure. We attracted a crowd though.
Just after noon, the tip closed down and this caused many of the gulls to leave, but a number settled down in front of us,including a fine adult Caspian-looking slightly better than a third winter bird I had seen distantly earlier.
Rumours started to pop up that the bird had been seen on the Thames, and also on a pool somewhere, and it eventually emerged that at least three small groups of birders had claimed to have seen the Slaty Backed, but news was never released.
We decided to call it a day and got back to the car at 1400-it was very tiring trying to stand on the narrow muddy bank and viewing through he scope was very uncomfortable and bad on the back. Having the 500mm lens did not help.
Still it was an interesting day, saw some good gulls and got in some practice on Caspians which is always useful. Nice to see a large contingent from across the Channel too.