February Dipping Blues
We had been struggling, our birding luck was right out and, since seeing the American Robin and Hume's Warbler in Eastbourne (see here) and a Ferruginous Duck just south of Oxford (see here), we couldn't even buy a bird. The fortnight that had followed had been hopeless. The first weekend 19-20th February had been a total washout with almost constant rain as one storm after another battered the UK so our attempts were largely confined to birding from the car and a few minutes spent at BWR. I spent most of that weekend watching my fence while crossing my fingers in the hope that it survived. We saw almost no birds at all.
The following weekend, 24-26th February, in better weather we did at least get out and about but still failed in our efforts to see most of our target birds. We began that weekend on the Friday at a local raptor watchpoint, an exposed site where conditions were more than a little bit chilly in a brisk northerly blow. We saw the raptors and a surprise Corn Bunting, new for the year, but didn't stay long.
 |
| Common Buzzard |
On the Saturday we headed up to The Priory Country Park in Bedford to look for a Green-winged Teal. It was a lovely sunny day and our spirits were high as we parked up and walked down to the floodplain of the River Ouse. The North American cousin of our own Eurasian Teal was frequenting a lake close to the river and had been present for over a month so it should be a shoe-in. It wasn't and we spent three, largely frustrating, hours looking for the bird that we just couldn't find even after we realised that for half of the time we had been looking in the wrong place. When a report was posted that the bird was still present just an hour after we'd left my mood darkened a bit more and I started to doubt my own abilities once again. To be fair the Teal group spent all of the time while we were there, sheltering in overhanging vegetation and were hard to observe at distance across the lake in choppy conditions. I guess we were just unlucky that the Green-winged version didn't venture out of its hiding place until after we'd left. The failure was softened slightly by finding our first Oystercatchers of the year plus a White-fronted Goose (the Russian type but we can't hold that against it, it's not its fault) that appeared far too pally with a small group of Canada geese for my liking. I'll have to underline that sighting with a trip to Slimbridge to see the totally genuine flock there.
 |
| Oystercatcher |
 |
| White-fronted Goose |
 |
| Barnacle Geese |
 |
| Egyptian Goose |
The next day, spurred on by Kyle (Birdwatch Britannia) and Kev's sighting of a fantastic Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, we left home early to travel the hour to the RSPB reserve at Middleton Lakes near Tamworth. The two "K's" had had stonking views of the small Woodpecker in trees directly opposite the carpark. We stood standing in the cold staring at those trees for three hours and didn't have a sniff! Our luck was definitely out. We do have another site for Lesser Pecker's though and it usually produces the goods so we'll be on the case. Middleton Lakes is an excellent reserve offering a variety of habitats and bird species but we didn't have the heart to look any further than the immediate area around the carpark. The Grey Herons building nests in the Heronry nearby provided the only real entertainment and the only photo I took was of a passing Sparrowhawk.
 |
| Sparrowhawk |
Year List additions;
137) White-fronted Goose, 138) Oystercatcher
Marching on at Last!
Thankfully, if much effort is applied, the birding gods don't oppose you forever and eventually the tide will turn and the birds will come again.
Saturday morning, the 5th, dawned dry and clear so we made our way to our (not so) local hotspot for watching Birds of Prey again. I'm ever hopeful of obtaining a crippling view and photograph of one of our rarest Raptor species which up to now I only own distant shots of. I didn't get those shots on this visit either although I did manage to see a brute of a female as it flew past distantly. Two flyover Crossbills were a surprise addition to the year list and a Hawfinch whirring rapidly past a few minutes later hinted that our drought may have been short lived and over.
 |
| Goshawk |
The weather on Sunday morning wasn't conducive for watching small birds flitting around tree tops but it was really our only opportunity to have another tilt at finding a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. We were looking in our favoured spot in Northamptonshire where we've seen them for the past five years after finding out about them through doing some online detective work. The wood we look in is small and never busy with birders, even though many folk know the Woodpeckers are there. In fact we've only ever met a few folk with similar ambitions as ours.
An early start is usually required to see Lesser Peckers and we were alone in the wood as we wandered through the trees, staring up as you have to do while listening for the high pitched calls and rattling drumming of the birds. It was a very grey and murky morning so if we found the birds I wouldn't be taking any stunning photos this time around but we just wanted to get a fix of the charismatic little Woodpeckers. For almost an hour there was no sign of any Woodpeckers of any description and my recent frustrations at failing to find any of my target began bubbling up once more. Our luck turned when a couple of chaps joined us. I answered, "No" even before they had asked the question of whether we'd seen a Lesser Pecker or not. Then almost straight after one of them said, "I can hear one drumming" (and probably thought that I must be deaf). Well, all I can say is that he clearly possessed far better hearing than I do and I always pride myself on having good ears despite the tinnitus that blights my life whenever I remember that I suffer from it. The two of them marched towards where the sound of drumming (the sound made by a Woodpecker banging a hollow branch with its bill) was supposedly coming from but there was no sign of any Woodpeckers, and no further sound of any either. I had my doubts that he'd heard a drumming bird at all and when a Great Spotted Woodpecker flew in from our left, the opposite direction from where he had heard it, I was pretty sure he hadn't, and even more definite when the Greater Pecker was followed closely by a male Lesser Pecker a moment later. The pair of birds alighted in the top of a tall tree some fifty metres away and we had our Lesser Spotted Woodpecker once again!
 |
| Lesser Spotted (top) & Great Spotted (bottom) Woodpeckers |
We had witnessed similar behaviour the year before (read here) when the smaller male Woodpecker had interacted with the larger bird. My guess is that it was a territorial dispute since I know that the breeding tree that the Lesser Pecker uses was quite close to where the two birds were. I also knew that the Lesser Pecker wouldn't be happy until the Great Spotted had been ousted from the area. It was hard to pick the birds out in the mangled mess of bare branches that form the canopy but at least we could see them, in a month or so the leaves adorning those branches would make it nigh in impossible to get a view of the Lesser Pecker.
The two birds flew out of the tree and past us but none of us saw where they went. Luckily the Lesser Spot was then heard drumming quite closely to our position. I zeroed in on the source by using the rather odd practise of cupping one's ears, which might look stupid but does actually work, for me anyway. I had the bird pinned down to a certain tree but could not find it at all, none of us could. After a few minutes the Lesser Pecker gave itself away by flying to another adjacent tree where it showed reasonably well although it was still high up.
 |
| male Lesser Spotted Woodpecker |
When the Lesser Pecker flew again one of the other birders managed to follow it and then found it again in a Silver Birch tree. Now it was much easier to see as it pecked away at a slender branch. The conditions were gloomy and there was drizzle in the air but no matter the weather, Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers are a total delight to see. We could hear drumming from another part of the wood and our fellow birders speculated whether there were two males in the area but female Woodpeckers also drum from time to time so it could have been the prospective pair keeping in touch with each other.
The male bird then obliged us further by shimmying up the main trunk of the Silver Birch and pausing right at the top giving us more clear views. How I wished the sun was shining!
When the Lesser Spot flew strongly out of the tree we made to leave, there was another bird in the local area that we wanted to see. However, as we neared the path that would take us out of the wood, I spotted some Lesser Redpolls feeding in the top of a Silver Birch. I pointed Mrs Caley in the direction of the birds but was agog when she said she was watching a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker instead! For the next two minutes I frantically searched the tree to see what my wife could see and couldn't find the Lesser Pecker anywhere. Then it started to drum and I still couldn't find it! According to Mrs Caley the bird flew out to the right and I just caught a glimpse of it as it landed in another nearby Silver Birch. This time I could see it and had extended views of my own as the bird, presumably the same male as before, spent some time staring towards the heavens, probably wondering when the rain would stop.
When the Lesser Spot flew off back towards the original part of the wood where we'd first seen it an hour or so before, we did finally make our way back to the car. As we drove towards our next destination, the sun appeared through the clouds, how I wished it had done that when we were in the trees earlier. Oh well, it's not every day you see a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker so I'm not complaining, not much anyway.
I was acting on a report that a Common Scoter was frequenting the main lake at Storton Gravel Pits, a wildlife trust reserve in the shadow of Sixfields Stadium, the home of the mighty Northampton FC. I knew nothing about the area birding wise although I did go the football ground once, when it was brand spanking new, to watch Chelsea in a pre-season friendly when there was expectation that Ruud Gullit would play. The lake, also known as Sixfields Lake was easy to find and had a carpark right next to its western edge. There was a choice of either walking along the northern bank or the opposite southern one but that entailed skirting along the carpark end first so we opted for the shorter northern track, even though the sun would be shining directly at us if it reemerged from behind the clouds which had settled across the entire visible sky again. I loaded the scope onto my shoulders ready to gain decent views of the Scoter should it be distant but as we walked around the lake it was evident that it probably wouldn't be required because it was only a hundred metres or so from one side of the lake to the other. Halfway along we came across a young Cormorant taking time out and drying off on a branch that overhung the lake. Cormorants look positively prehistoric and must be directly descended from the flying reptilian group, the Pterosaurs.
 |
| Cormorant |
I scoped the furthest reaches of the lake, I had carried it so I may as well use it, but could only find Great Crested Grebes, Tufted Ducks, a large flock of Herring Gulls and a few Black-headed Gulls. We walked on trying to find places to get a clear view of the lake since the shore was mostly protected by trees and bushes. We arrived at a bridge which led over the adjacent River Nene that flowed over a weir beneath the bridge. That was supposed to be the place where the Scoter was likely to be seen from so I scanned again. This time I saw the duck, only fifty metres away, as it resurfaced close to the side of the lake that we were on. I took a few record shots.
 |
| Common Scoter |
We walked steadily towards the Scoter which had now dived again so that when it resurfaced we had halved the distance between us and it. We waited until it dived again and then made our final approach so that when it popped up again, we were close enough to get probably our best and closest ever views of a drake Common Scoter. But now I was cursing the sunshine for appearing since it was now shining full on directly at us and meant that the bird was mostly silhouetted against it.
From our elevated position above the water the Common Scoter appeared unconcerned of our presence but I strived to get a lower perspective to my photos so after waiting a few seconds for the bird to make another dive, I slid down the bank and crouched behind a tree. The bird surfaced very close to the bank and better still was facing directly at me. Adjusting for the harsh light and after a lot of tinkering later on the computer, I was more than satisfied with the resulting shots which showed just what a handsome creature a male Common Scoter is. Usually we see Common Scoters in large rafts (the term given to a flock of sea ducks) at distance offshore and it's difficult to discern any features. Up close though, like this bird was, the uniform jet black plumage, a feature of males in all Scoter species (females are a brownish colour), could be appreciated and it acted almost as a colour sink, so none of the array of purples and blues that other more familiar black plumaged species have (like Crows) were evident, just black. Common Scoters are impressively built ducks with a large round body and a strong looking head and bill. The bill is the prominent feature with a large bulge on the upper mandible. Just below that bulge is the only bit of colour on the entire bird, an orange-yellow patch that forms a saddle.
While the duck was hidden from view I tried to get into a position so that the sun had less effect on my photographic efforts but without any great success. We could have walked around to the opposite shore but after being out all morning already we lacked the legs so I accepted the fact that I had already vastly improved on my Common Scoter portfolio. It was also good to have two Scoter species (Velvet the other) on the year list at a very early stage this year and both had been seen on local lakes saving the need to travel to the coast to see them. I took a few more shots before we left but another birder arriving and venturing out onto a fishing platform had already disturbed the Scoter and it had swum further out.
On the way back to the car a pair of Ravens flew closely past, one of which was close enough for a quick shot or two. We'd had a good day in Northamptonshire and it was good to actually achieve our aims after a frustrating couple of weeks.
 |
| Raven |
Year List additions;
139) Common Crossbill, 140) Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, 141) Common Scoter
Sixfields Stadium
No comments:
Post a Comment