I've made no secret of our desire to aim for and achieve, a "Big Year" in 2022 and my latest few blogs have really expressed very little else. A "Big Year" in birding terms is a quest to see 300 different species in the UK in a calendar year and we were now getting very near to that total. With the end of the year approaching fast we now had no choice but to persist with our quest, it would be extremely frustrating to fail now. After our trip to Norfolk last week we were left needing just 3 more birds to add. Of course having seen so many species already our choice of target birds was small. As usual the run-up to Christmas was a very busy period at work so the only chance of going ticking would be at the weekends. If we were stuck needing one or two then we'd have the holiday week at the end of the year but I really didn't want to take it to the wire. The best birds that we could have gained were, as is also quite usual, in far off places like Scotland or North Wales and I really didn't want to be travelling that far. So when I studied the latest bird news ahead of Saturday, I settled on making a second attempt for a bird that we had already "dipped" once before.
No twitcher likes to "dip" when you fail to see a target bird, but it happens. At the end of the day, birds are mobile subjects and can disappear in an instant. Dips tend to come in runs, often you can go ages and are successful at all twitches, then you miss out on a few. When you're in a rut (as the Ruts sang), you gotta get out of it and the only way to do that is to keep plugging away. Two weeks before we had travelled to Essex to see a juvenile Spotted Sandpiper which had apparently been present at Hanningfield Reservoir for at least two weeks previously but had been initially identified as a very similar Common Sandpiper. Once the birds true identity had been established the Spotted Sandpiper had shown really well and continually for two days until we went when it went into hiding. It reappeared about an hour after we'd given up that day. Sightings of it had been sporadic since, the cold snap of weather no doubt had some influence on its movements and it must have forsaken the reservoir for other sites, but over the preceding few days it had been seen well again. So with little else to "go for" we trusted our luck once more and took the relatively short drive back to the Billericay area and to the Essex Wildlife Trust's reserve at the reservoir.
As on our previous visit we warmed up with a very satisfying freshly cooked breakfast at the nearby Water's Edge cafe on the, you guessed it, banks of the reservoir. It was a very cold morning with much frost and ice. We gazed over the water, well the first few hundred metres of it since beyond that was obscured by a fairly thick fog, and hoped that when we reached the Lyster Hide that the Spotted Sandpiper would be there. We really needed this bird. We were in the reserve at the ten o'clock opening bell (why do places open so late) and walked the hundred yards or so to the hide. On opening the doors we were surprised, and delighted, to find the hide empty, in stark contrast to the fortnight before when there was standing room only. We snuggled into one corner and stared out at the bleakness. The shore in front of the hide was where we expected to see the Spotted Sandpiper but the only bird there was a lone Pied Wagtail. It was joined by a Grey Wagtail a few minutes later. I scanned the further reaches of our view and similarly came up with no Sandpiper. Our hearts sank a bit again and we steeled ourselves against another no show from our desired bird.
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| Grey Wagtail (Motacilla cinerea) |
Mrs Caley's shout of 'What's this?' knocked me out of my self-induced stupor. It was a Sandpiper and it was flying towards us from the direction of the cafe and where I'd been earnestly scanning a few minutes before. It landed almost directly in front of us and I rattled off some shots. There had been no mention of any Common Sandpipers in the area so it had to be the vagrant juvenile Spotted Sandpiper but for now record shots were of the upmost importance so I grabbed the camera rather than my binoculars. I'd study the bird when it settled down to feed.
Unfortunately the Spotted Sandpiper didn't settle, ten-seconds after landing it flew up and moved thirty yards to our left. I did at least grab a few flight shots which would prove crucial in establishing the identity. I left my seat at the right hand end of the hide and moved to the left. When I looked out of the slats the bird had gone. Neither Mrs Caley or myself had seen it leave.
The few photos that I'd taken, even though they were of poor quality, showed that the bird we'd seen was indeed the juvenile Spotted Sandpiper. Juveniles of Spotted Sandpipers (from North America) are very similar to juvenile Common Sandpipers (from Eurasia) and the differences between the two are subtle. One of the main differences is that the tail of a juvenile Spotted is shorter than in Common and doesn't project beyond the wing tips. That could be seen in the photos of the standing bird. In flight the white wing bar of the Spotted doesn't reach the inner wing as it does in Common and that could be seen in the flight shots. So in just over twenty-seconds of decent views and ten frames of photos I'd secured the necessary information to identify the bird. Other differences between the two species involve the bare parts, In the Spotted the bill is pinkish-based and paler and the legs are yellow rather than grey-green but in the gloomy light those were less evident as was the slightly plainer and greyish plumage of the Spotted.
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| juvenile Spotted Sandpiper (Actitis macularius) |
This was the third Spotted Sandpiper that we'd seen after adult birds in Milton Keynes and The Lake District. We dipped an adult at Farmoor so we still don't have the species on our Oxon list but I'm fairly sure that another opportunity will present itself one day. More importantly it was our 298th bird of 2022 and we had taken another big step towards that magic Big Year number, vindicating our decision to revisit Hanningfield. A few other birders joined us in the hide and we related the good news that the Spot Sand was around but the bad news that it had been and gone. We gave it another hour and then gave up and accepted our lot. It was too bloody cold to sit there any longer anyway. We headed back to the cafe for more coffee.
The Spotted Sandpiper was reported again mid-afternoon but had been distant at the end of a distant spit of land to the right of the hide. I don't think it was ever seen again in front of the hide. We had been lucky, even if only for twenty-seconds!
Year List addition;
298) Spotted Sandpiper
The tactic of revisiting a site for a second stab at seeing a target bird had worked the day before so when we awoke on the Sunday morning with no real plan for the day we ended up deciding to attempt the strategy again. This time we would retrace our steps back to WWT London and try again to see a Water Pipit that we'd failed to see four weeks before and which was still being reported on an almost daily basis.
The advantage of visiting any WWT reserve is also a disadvantage because they don't open to the public until 09:30. It's an advantage because you can make a leisurely start to the day, and we needed that, but a disadvantage because, as everybody knows, the best birding is done early doors when birds are most active and it's quiet otherwise. When we had visited in October the Peacock Tower hide from which the Pipit was being seen from was anything but quiet with some particularly noisy folk spoiling our enjoyment somewhat, although to be fair it was probably because we couldn't find the bird that soured our mood.
When we opened the curtains at home and readied for the hours drive to the best end of London, we were greeted by a thick blanket of fog. Fog isn't unusual in our area, we sit on the edge of Otmoor which is very well known for generating foggy days, and we know that once out of the immediate area that there could be a nice sunny day everywhere else. Unfortunately on this morning the fog persisted all day and it was just as dense all the way along the M40 and into London. At the WWT centre in Barnes the fog was possibly even thicker and visibility was only around fifty metres when we arrived. We ignored the temptation of an early coffee and marched straight to the Peacock Tower which was thankfully empty (and quiet). We climbed the two flights of stairs and gazed out at the greyness beyond. The Tower overlooks two areas known as The Grazing Marsh and the Wader Scrape respectively, well usually it does but today we could only see around half of each. I peered through the gloom as much as I could, thankful for bringing the scope with me, but could find nothing. Not even a dickie bird.
I finally noticed some movement on the icebound scrapes below. It was very cold so both the Wader Scrape and the Grazing Marsh were frozen solid. Even the channel of water separating the two was partly iced over. The birds I'd spotted were Pipits but I couldn't get any further than Meadow when evaluating them. At least there was now some activity on the scrapes. We spotted a couple of Stonechats feeding almost at the edge of our vision and a Sparrowhawk breezed through. The small flock of Pipits flew up and resettled close to the Stonechats, I had counted six on the scrape but in flight there were probably nearer a dozen. Crucially as they flew I heard a single note call. I wasn't too familiar with Water Pipit calls but I knew that Meadow Pipits have a two or even three note call. I checked the area where the Pipit flock had landed and almost instantly spotted a Water Pipit feeding on the edge of the ice right next to the Stonechats. Our 299th bird of the year was in the bag!
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| Water Pipit (Anthus spinoletta) |
The Water Pipit was difficult to observe in the foggy conditions and would frequently disappear into the frozen grass and weeds. It stayed in the vicinity of the two Stonechats though and would appear at the edge of the ice. Photography was also pretty pointless except to gain record shots. Despite all that enough detail could be garnered in order to obtain that positive ID. The clean white underparts with clear distinct streaking, and the striking white supercilium showed well as opposed to the buffy colour of the Meadow Pipits.
It was probably minus five degrees in the hide so once we'd seen the Water Pipit we didn't stay too long afterwards. Long enough to see a Dartford Warbler dart across the channel from one frozen patch of scrub to another. A pair of Dartford Warblers have been present here for a while so it was good to see one of them. We stopped for a quick look out from the Dulverton Hide and saw a Bittern standing stock still like a statue at the edge of the lake.
Back at the visitor centre we enjoyed a very tasty bowl of soup and a couple of coffees which helped revive the senses. Back outside I studied a few of the Ring-necked Parakeets which are always around this area. The beautiful green Parakeets looked fed up with the dank weather and most had decided to sleep the morning out.
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| Ring-necked Parakeet (Psittacula krameri) |
We drove home happy, our tactic had paid off again, and we now required just one bird for the "Big Year". I hoped that we'd get something good to mark the achievement.
Year List addition;
299) Water Pipit
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