The Big Twitch XH558

Back in the 70's I used to go to a lot of air shows-in fact that was the main reason I got a camera the moment I got a job. Have not been to one for a long time now, but on our travels round the country we do get to encounter interesting aircraft now and again. I remember twitching a Terek sandpiper at Stanpit once, when Concorde flew over at a very low altitude.
One of my favourites from the old days was seeing Vulcans take off-something that is impressive to say the least. Last week the last flying Vulcan attended the Shuttleworth display, which I thought was the last ever flight but it has been touring the country this weekend. The flight path looked good, as the track crossed the A505 near Coombe Road so I decided to pop up.
Knowing the area quite well, I had intended to park by a gate at the top of the hill near Horseshoe Wood Farm, but a lot of locals had the same idea, and I ended up in a pull in further south towards Kelshall, joining an aviation enthusiast. Good selection of birds while I waited, lots of corvids, Skylark, Meadow Pipit and pigeons. One Great Spotted Woodpecker, a few Goldcrests and tits in the hedgerows, and two Jays flew by. Distant views of Buzzard and Red Kite over towards DeadMans Hill, and Pheasants seemed to be allover the place, presumably recent releases.
Tracked the Vulcan flight on Twitter, and it passed us at around 1325, unfortunately a bit further west than planned. In fact I suspect I would have been better off at DeadMans Hill, and the lighting wasn't quite what I wanted but we can't have everything. Long time since I saw a V bomber in the air so it was nice to see one again.

Redpolls on the Move

Flu jab this morning, so went down to Amwell. Took the scope today, as I have recently gone for the iPhone 6s plus and bought a Novagrade adaptor for it, so it seemed worth getting some practice in before a major twitch.
Bill ans William were there when I arrived at 0930, and later Phil, Simon and Ade turned up. There was a lot of talk about moths, insects and so on as Amwell seemed to be pretty quiet. The Wagtails (Grey and Pied) are flying around now and again, and the regular Kingfisher put in an appearance. Very few waders-for much of the morning there was a single Lapwing present until a couple more arrived. We assumed Snipe are present, but none showed. As last week, a Water Rail was seen in the reeds left of the hide, but a bit more interesting was the dog Fox dozing and causing a bit of a disturbance among the wildfowl.

Cropped phone image-its blown the Swan highlights but reasonable quality considering the distance. I have an app to set the camera up manually as it seems to default to very low iso and slow shutter speeds.
Mid morning small birds started to move as the wind picked up. Two Swallows appeared, heading south-so much for what I said last week. A lot of birds were too far away over the woods,  but Siskins, Chaffinches and Meadow Pipits were seen, and at 1120 two Redpolls flew east over our heads calling. Ten minutes later, another 19 appeared, flew around the reeds in front of us and dropped down onto the Loosestrife seed heads. I tried to get the phone onto the scope, having had superb views but something put them up and they continued off down the valley.
The wind seemed to encourage the raptors, with two Sparrowhawks, 4-6 Red Kites and several Buzzards seen in the last hour.
Shortly after I left, a Stonechat put in an appearance-Simon gets them on Kings Mead but they don't seem to be as regular at Amwell as they used to be.

Another Morning at Amwell

I was expecting to go out today, but Colin injured his foot at one of yesterday's rugby matches and did not feel up to a journey. We were hoping to get to the east coast, maybe Suffolk/Essex and try to get some of the Yellow Browed Warblers, plus the long staying Wilson's Phalarope (not reported today) and maybe get lucky with something really good. Seems like it was a bit quiet out that way so maybe we saved a journey.
So with a morning free I ended up going down to Amwell as usual. It was a lovely morning, not exactly ideal birding weather, light mist being lit up by the golden sun, which was also illuminating the colourful dogwoods and maples on the drive down. Despite the sun, it remained a bit cooler than it has been, only hitting 12C by lunchtime.
When I got to the view point the regulars did not have a great deal to report-the usual assortment of ducks, geese, gulls and so on. One or two Kingfishers put on a show now and again-the Rye Meads pair have raised three or four broods and the population in the valley seems to be recovering from the last two really bad winters. A Water Rail show occasionally in the reeds but there has been no report of Bitterns following a brief sighting last month-the assumption was it was a bird stopping off before moving further down the valley where there are a couple wintering. Cetti's warblers were very vocal, with one bird singing near the view point and one or more being seen occasionally in the reeds. I also saw another Warbler but never really got on to it-I am assuming it could be a late Reed warbler.
Overhead movements were a bit on and off all morning-most birds were likely to be too high up in the clear blue sky. Siskins were seen frequently, the large flock is still around, Five Skylarks went north, and I heard a few more over the course of the morning. A couple of Meadow Pipits flew down the valley, Song Thrushes seemed to be on the move as well.
Raptors seemed to be keeping a low profile, with only a single Sparrowhawk in the first couple of hours. Eventually two Kites and maybe five Buzzards started to show over Easeneye Wood, and while watching them, 18 Swallows appeared, heading south and not stopping to feed over the water. Don't think I will see any more this year, so thats another Summer over.

End of a week off

Well I had a week off to make a start on the bottom fence and gate. These days I can only manage to do a few hours heavy work a day so its taking time. Clearing and shredding the ivy, and other prunings that accumulated took a couple of days, interrupted by a wet spell. Had a few decent birds while I worked-a Chiffchaff was calling in a nearby garden, a Grey Wagtail flew east, and I have noticed that the Dunnocks have come back again. Also there are two regular Collared Doves, and Goldfinch numbers are building up-nine is the maximum so far. Despite there still being a decent flock in the area, House Sparrows are not visiting at the moment. The other odd thing is that the Rowan is still holding on to berries despite the attention of a pair of Blackbirds, usually the Starlings have stripped it by now.
Sarah and Ed came over on Friday to help and we managed to get half the fence sorted, with the usual  delays caused by trying to excavate the rotten posts embedded in concrete. The rest will have to wait until my next holiday in a few weeks. Still aching today.

Yesterday in an attempt to ease my aches and pains I went for a gentle walk around Aston End. Being a fine sunny day, cool and damp at first warming up rapidly it was not going to produce a great deal. Several Chiffchaffs are trying to sing, Jays are very noticeable, and I have found another Nuthatch location-they do seem to be increasing around here, once upon a time Box Wood was the only location in eastern Stevenage that I knew of.
Down by the ford, there was a flock of hirundines heading south. In the bright sun it was a bit difficult to be sure but most if not all were House Martins, around 25 in total. A Buzzard on the telephone pole south of the ford was preening, so I tried to get closer with the inevitable result.

 
Things remained quiet along the walker road, but as I headed down to the wooden bridge there was a small flock of Linnets and Yellowhammers on the weedy set aside area by the river. Several Meadow Pipits are present, and a couple of Skylarks have started singing again. Approaching the paddocks a squeaky call and a flash of blue alerted me to a Kingfisher-the first I'd seen here for many years. Local birder Tom Spellar encountered  two here while searching for the Redstart I found last month so the river seems to be healthy enough to support them. Obviously the Beane (one of the internationally rare chalk streams) restoration project is paying dividends. Still very low in summer, but it is flowing now rather than drying up with a few shallow pools which has been the case for the last 30 years or so.

Amwell

Another fine sunny day with little news being reported. I went down to Amwell as usual and met up with the regular Sunday mob.
The recent Whinchat seems to have gone, but there were plenty of Chiffchaffs everywhere, and a rather late Reed Warbler in the reeds in front of the view point. Two Kingfishers, two Snipe and a couple of Dabchicks were the highlights on or near the water. Some migration was happening, with the occasional Meadow Pipit, small Flocks of Siskins, and some Swallows, House and Sand Martins heading south. There seemed to be a lot of Little Egrets around again-I counted at least eight.
Raptors were enjoying the weather with around 10 Buzzards, a Red Kite, a Sparrowhawk and one or two Kestrels.
I went down to Hollycross for a spell. A few Red Admirals and lots of Migrant Hawkers in the clearings. About twenty minutes were spent by the board walk seat, checking the willows. A large dark damsel flew down from the bushes across the water, landed on some meadow sweet and then fluttered off into the big willow.  I never got a good close look at it but it was rather distinctive and was certainly a female Willow Emerald.
On the way back, having checked the copper beeches earlier, another photographer found one of the Spotted Flycatchers on the telephone wires.

Cabin Fever

I have not been travelling with Colin for a few weeks, and he has been itching to go out and do something. Although it has been pretty quiet on the east coast recently, with high pressure over the Uk killing migration there were some birds around so we headed up to Titchwell.
Th promising low mist soon gave way to bright warm sunshine. Not a great deal in Titchwell car park so we walked out to the marshes. I had hoped that the Osprey would still be around on Thornham Marsh, but a shooter had set up in its preferred spot and was not seen all day. At first there seemed to be very few waders present, the water levels being a bit high, so favouring hoards of duck. Among the large flock of Black tailed Godwits we saw a few Redshank, Dunlin, Ringed Plover and a lot of Ruff. A few Grey Plovers were present, but no Golden. Three Spoonbills were loafing at the back of the fresh marsh as usual, but were actually awake and moving-something we don't often see. Every now and again Bearded Tits were pinging and erupting from the reeds, and there were still at least one Yellow Wagtail among the Pieds.
There were more waders using the area behind the dunes as a high tide roost-more Grey and Ringed Plover, Oystercatcher, Turnstone and a couple of Spotted Redshanks.
Despite the onshore breeze, sea watching was not all that I had hoped for. Apart from the constant movements of Gannets, with many juveniles heading west close inshore, and Sandwich terns it was hard going. We saw a few Red Throated Divers, all distant, three presumed Arctic Skuas on the horizon, and a few Common Scoter.
On our return we saw the two reported Little Stints, but failed to locate two Curlew Sandpipers. Leica and Zeiss had set up a tent by the visitors centre, so we stopped off to have some of our gear serviced. While there I got to play with the new Zeiss SF 10x40 bins which were very impressive-the field of view seems to be only a bit smaller than my old 7x42, much lighter and incredibly sharp. Unfortunately one of the guys had a problem with cards in his Nikon D3x camera-we swapped gear to prove his cards were not compatible with the camera. He then dug out some of the new Zeiss lenses for me to play with. Not happy as its going to be very expensive getting all this nice new stuff.

After lunch and with very little news coming in from anywhere we thought it might be worth going to Cley. Cant remember when we were last there, but the offshore wind farm was new to us. Like Titchwell the scrapes were full of ducks and Godwits and not much else. About the only notable sighting were a small group of Pintail. Bit disappointed really, but it just seemed to be one of those days, and it was nice to get out.

Another Quiet Weekend with major Garden Changes

I was looking forward to this weekend-the weather seemed promising on the east coast, at least it was being talked up quite a lot on Bird Forum. While there was a decent smattering of the common stuff-Pied Flys, Redstarts, chats etc and the first Yellow Brows of the autumn, it did not seem to be enough to tempt us out. Inland it was pretty much the same, a few bits and pieces here and there.
I had Friday off to make a start on the garden. Had to have a tree surgeon out to remove a Birch tree-it was a self seeder and good for the finches, but had put on a big growth spurt recently, hitting 35 foot and  really lopsided, leaning at an angle and with some branches over 10 feet long. Since it was overhanging the parked cars and a neighbours shed it had to go. While waiting for him to arrive, I had a new garden tick in the form of a Whitethroat that stayed for a few minutes. Makes me wonder what actually passes through the garden when no-one is looking.
Next project for the garden is replacing the bottom fence and gate. This means taking off a huge amount of Ivy, so no more nesting Robins and Blackbirds for a while unfortunately, and no more late autumn bees either. In a way I'm glad to get rid of it as it got a bit rampant. Had a nice honeysuckle here once, and I am hoping to put another one in, perhaps a climbing rose as well, or maybe a more restrained climbing shrub, so there will be nesting and wildlife opportunities in the future.
Today I went round Aston End and along the river for a couple of hours. The weather was not exactly inspiring, dull, but reasonably warm and no wind. Still a lot of Chiffchaffs around, and the tits and finches are starting to become more vocal and noticeable. Found two pairs of Bullfinch-one near the ford, and another in the yet to be harvested beans near the radio mast. Yellowhammers were everywhere in small numbers-the last walk failed to find any, and there were a few Linnets flying around. Jays are now active, with birds seen regularly on the walk, and six were together near the ford. Heard a Nuthatch on the edge of High Wood while walking along the Walkern road -seems to be a regular occurrence here these days. Not much at all in the paddocks apart from Chiffchaffs and Yellowhammers, though the invisible Little Owl did call once. I still have not seen it this year, it is not in the usual trees and seems to favour areas which cannot be observed from the footpaths. No hirundines this weekend, I suppose most have gone now.
No butterflies either, not unexpected considering the weather. One Migrant Hawker was the only notable insect, though I noticed that Crane Flies seem to be appearing in quantity now.