LESVOS!!! Part 4; The Birds Keep-a-Coming!

LESVOS!!! Diary Part 3; Golden Birding!

 

May Matters! Part 1

LESVOS!!! Diary Part 2; The Gift that Keeps on Giving!

LESVOS!!! Diary Part 1; An Amazing Start!

Arctic Warbler in the Bag at Last!; Spurn, 28th September 2024

A Gap Filled. Baird's Sandpiper, 4th August 2024

We'd been having a (seemingly) tough time of it birding wise and July had been almost a bird-free month for us. The middle of the year is often referred to as the doldrums when good birds are hard to come by because they become secretive while undergoing post breeding moult, and autumn migration has yet to start. This particular July was even harder than usual because our luck had almost completely run out and we struggled to connect with anything since we had ticked a Black-winged Pratincole at the end of June. The only bird of note we added to our year list was the returning Bonaparte's Gull in Kent and we had to settle with distant views of the bird mostly dozing. We had hoped to add a fabulous Franklin's Gull to our life list when one settled in next to Crossness by the River Thames in London for four days but then disappeared just as the weekend, and our chance to go, arrived. 

The following week we travelled to Cheddar, the home of proper cheese, in Somerset hoping to see a Spotted Sandpiper that had shown incredibly well the day before. However, even before leaving home on the Saturday morning, I had reservations about whether the trip would be successful, having seen photographs proving that the bird had been hounded and continually disturbed while it fed along the reservoir edge. Flight shots of birds are to my mind, the best and most sought after, but when you see the bird flying ahead of encroaching birders then you realise that the bird isn't being allowed to settle. Cheddar reservoir has a wide gently sloping concrete apron which is exposed when water levels are low. It isn't supposed to be used as a platform for people to walk along or for dogs to run amok on but unfortunately it is. At Farmoor, most birders will wait and sit on the apron wall, allowing any bird to approach. If movement is kept to a minimum, wading birds will usually walk past, directly underneath the observer. Therefore, it wasn't really a surprise when the bird had disappeared overnight.

We weren't the only birders disappointed that we'd missed out on the Spotted Sandpiper. We also met our friends Rob & Thomas, and Nick while searching in vain. They had far more reason to be downhearted since none of them had seen the species before. We've been fortunate to see four of the North American counterpart of the Common Sandpiper. While we chatted I mentioned that I too had a few big holes in my own life list with a few "obvious" birds missing. One of those was Baird's Sandpiper, a bird that somehow I had never gotten round to seeing despite quite a few making it to British shores every year. We had never quite been in the right place at the right time to encounter one.

Prophetic then that just five days later, a Baird's Sandpiper was found at Goldcliff Lagoons on the Gwent Levels near Newport. Now, I am not a big fan of Goldcliff, I find it difficult to bird, the subjects always seem to be distant, and hard to observe because of vegetation impeding the views. But I have seen some good birds there, a Citrine Wagtail and Lesser Yellowlegs in recent years. It always seems to rain there as well, everywhere on the River Severn estuary gets a lot of precipitation. But the site is only a couple of hours drive from home so after seeing the original report of the bird on Friday, I made plans for an attempt on the Saturday. Those plans were abandoned though when the Sandpiper was seen to fly off strongly towards the sea mid-morning on Friday and it wasn't seen to return.

With no further reports of the Baird's Sandpiper, we decided to take a stroll around our local RSPB reserve at Otmoor, primarily to see if we could get a better view of the two celebrity Marsh Harrier fledglings. They have been afforded star status because both have a large amount of white feathers so are very striking looking birds. The white feathers are thought to be a result of poor diet while the birds were young when, to compensate for the lack of food, their bodies completely stopped producing melanin (the substance that makes dark pigment). Interestingly the full brood featured two normally plumaged young as well.

We didn't get any improved views of the funky Harrier twins but left the Moor happy after enjoying a bit of a social and we did see some nice birds whilst there. As we neared the carpark I noticed a report that the Baird's Sandpiper had been reported at Goldcliff Lagoons again. The report had been from quite early in the morning but I'd not checked my phone whilst being on Otmoor. A more recent report said that the Sandpiper had relocated to the mud of the estuary and was showing well from the seawall close to Goldcliff Point just half a mile or so from the Lagoons. We went home to grab lunch but once eaten thought that we should make the effort and get to South Wales pronto!

While we'd been at home the Baird's Sandpiper had flown back to the reserve but had flown off again just as we cleared the town and hit the A34 south. And that was where the day unravelled. Predictably the A34 south of the M40 was jammed. It always is. Usually though the traffic eases as you travel southwards. Usually it does, but not on this Saturday. Half an hour later we had reached Kidlington, three miles further on. It took another twenty minutes to get to Peartree on the outskirts of Oxford, and with no hint of the traffic jam easing, I turned off and decided to leave it and to monitor the reports for the rest of the day, earmarking an attempt for the following morning.

Our friends Spadge & Bryan made it to Newport and connected with the Sandpiper that day but it had again transferred back to the reserve and their views were distant. Photos of the bird emerged online, and those taken when the bird was feeding off the point looked pretty good. My friend Steve, who lives close to Goldcliff, kept me well informed of where the Baird's had been throughout the day. We would leave early on the Sunday morning and hope that the bird was showing on the mud off the seawall. 

We arrived at Newport by eight after a traffic free and easy drive, Saturday and Sunday mornings are the only quiet times to travel in Britain these days. Typically there had been no reports of the Baird's Sandpiper and I was castigating myself for not keeping going the day before. He who hesitates, generally loses. There was an amazing number of other cars parked up already, obviously a lot of local folk had never seen a Baird's Sandpiper either. We parked and spoke to a chap who had been into the reserve and he related the negative news and the fact that up to forty birders had been on site since first light. With nothing to go on, I decided that we may as well walk into the lagoons anyway even though I knew that it'd be a waste of time. After the several disappointing twitches recently, another one was almost too much to take, and my spirits hit rock bottom. I trudged to the Greenshank hide and could hardly be bothered to join the throng inside. All we could see was a flock of twenty Lapwing, a few Dunlin and a couple of Little Egrets. To top it all off, it predictably began raining. It would have been disappointing if it hadn't.

We returned to the car, and in a rare moment of inspiration, I thought that we may as well check out the seawall area where the Sandpiper had been seen so well the day before. It was only half mile away from where we were anyway. We parked and walked up to the embankment. The tide was in and lapping up against the rocks of the walls so there was no exposed mud for wading birds to feed on. However, I knew that the tide would turn soon and that the mud so cherished by many wading birds, would be revealed. We noticed around ten other birders were lined up across the path about two hundred yards away. They were all looking intently at a specific section of the rocky foreshore. I checked the rocks out through my scope and could see a huddle of small birds sheltering there. Could the Baird's be there?

With more hope now, we quickened our steps and neared the other birders. As I suspected, my good friends Kev & Karen were part of the group and Dean & Karen were also there. I always rib Kev about what a lucky birder he is so seeing him there raised my spirits up again. The whole group were completely strung out across the path so we stood ten yards behind and aimed my own scope at the group of waders on the rocks. I noted Ringed Plovers, Dunlin, and Turnstones but couldn't see anything smaller. For ten minutes not much happened although it was clear that the tide had turned, and the birds were becoming restless. Then a flock of Dunlin exploded out of their collective roosting spots. I'd only noticed about ten before but now there were well over fifty. I took a few quick shots of the wheeling flock but I couldn't spot the Baird's amongst them.

Dunlin

Birds began dropping onto the mud that was slowly appearing as the tide leaked out. First the Turnstones took to it followed by some Dunlin and later by a few of the Ringed Plovers. Suddenly I found myself mouthing, 'It's there!', and 'Running away from us'. Mainly to Mrs Caley of course because the others were probably out of earshot. I got Mrs Caley onto the Baird's Sandpiper just as the voices rose in the advance group, they had also clocked the target bird.

Baird's Sandpiper (left)

The Baird's Sandpiper, bird number #430 on my UK life list, was noticeably smaller than the Dunlin. Even at the distance of around fifty yards away, it appeared much lighter coloured with an unmarked clean white belly. It most resembled a small Sanderling and it moved energetically across the mud, always keeping distance between itself and the other birds. The shorter bill, attenuated shape and squat body made it much easier to identify and separate from the Dunlin, than I had previously imagined. The Baird's must have been secreted within the rocks and like the other birds, had been waiting for the tide to go out before it could feed.

Now the bird had been found, I caught up with my good luck charm, Kev, and we set about, along with the others, creeping forward so that we could get some better views. The flock was still a bit nervy though, and were often put up by waves that still lapped at the rocks. They always returned to almost the same spot since that was the only place that the water drained off. On one occasion I managed to capture a few record shots of the Baird's Sandpiper as it launched into flight.

With more mud being exposed with every ebbing wave, the flock of birds were scuttling towards us and it wasn't long before the Baird's Sandpiper presented itself directly underneath us. The seawall path was a good twenty feet above the mud so views were from directly above but now the Sandpiper was so close it hardly mattered. I laid flat on the ground to lessen the drop down to the bird. Baird's Sandpiper have flattened, oval shaped bodies which is most noticeable when seen head on or from behind. I've heard them called the "Weetabix bird" in reference to the flat oval shaped breakfast cereal which is also similarly coloured.

The Baird's Sandpiper fed voraciously now there was mud to probe in. The items of prey were very small, worms, gnats and other tiny morsels were all taken. The power of the modern camera and lenses, enable some of these tiny food items to be seen in the tweezer type bill of the bird.

The views now were nothing short of sensational. It felt good to actually connect with a good bird again after our pretty shoddy run of late. But then I'm always feeling hard done by and pretend that I don't have the luck that some of my peers seem to have. If I reflect on the year so far, I've actually seen every lifer that I've gone for so far, the Baird's being my seventh addition of 2024 to my life list. What was really good with this bird was gaining as many photos as I wanted for a change. It was the first prolonged photo session in a while and I took as many as I wanted to.

A newly arrived birder almost trod on me, I was still laying prone on the seawall, then settled down alongside me. I turned and stared my good mate Jim (The Standlake Birder) in the eye. I had wondered when he'd turn up. Jim and I often need the same bird for our lists so bump into each other quite often at major twitches. Now I knew why the Baird's Sandpiper was showing so well. Not for me but for Lucky Jim!

We took photos as we chatted, the benefit of having silent shutters on our not-so-new-now fangled mirrorless cameras. As we talked, we got around to discussing what "obvious" bird that's missing from our lists that we'd like to see next. After all, the fairy godmother of bird-giving had produced after my chat with Nick, Rob & Thomas the week before. Jim wanted a Terek Sandpiper (pretty rare that one), I voted for a Broad-billed Sandpiper (much less rare). Fingers crossed for either later on in the autumn.

After taking a few hundred photos, which were all becoming pretty much the same, of the Baird's Sandpiper on the flat wet mud with only its own footprints or the odd fragment of vegetation to add interest, I gave up, especially when the bird began to drift further out. We'd had the best of it.

Just to get our year back on track, we drove to Westhay Moor in the hope of seeing some Bearded Tits. The increasing wind put paid to that though. It's now been a couple of years since we had good views of the species. A Water Rail hopping across the path was the only sighting of note.

Year List addition;

245) Baird's Sandpiper

 

Aqua-tick! September 11th 2023

Dorset at the Double! Portland 17th April 2024

Pallor & Waxy; Friday 17th November 2023

A Big Little Surprise! 8th November 2023

Birding throws up unexpected surprises on a regular basis, whether that's finding an unusual bird in your garden or a scarce species on your local patch, or a rare bird being discovered nationally that can then be added to your life list. On Monday a lucky birdwatcher photographed a bird that he didn't recognise at Linford Lakes nature reserve on the outskirts of Milton Keynes. He posted a photo of the bird that he spotted creeping through a reedbed on a local FaceBook page asking for identification. Amazingly the bird was a Little Crake, never before recorded in Buckinghamshire, a national rarity, and not on the Old Caley list!

The identification wasn't established until after dark so there was no chance for anyone else to see the Little Crake that day but eager local Bucks birders were on site at first light on Tuesday morning. The Crake was seen almost immediately and a major twitch was in full swing. However, there were problems. Linford Lakes is a permit holder only reserve so access is limited. Even though I'd heard of the reserve, I had never been there. The reserve is managed by The Parks Trust and a meeting between them and eminent local birders established that for the rest of Tuesday and the following day that non-permit holders would be allowed to enter after making a minimum donation of five pounds. The only proviso was that volunteers would be required to man the gates and the hide from where the Little Crake could be seen. The twitchers grapevine was alive with the details and by mid-morning birders were arriving to see the bird. By all accounts the Little Crake showed superbly well in bright sunshine throughout the day.

As for myself, I was watching developments with much interest. Primarily because I hadn't seen the species before of course, but also because I didn't want to pass up such a good bird locally. Although I live in Oxfordshire, the Buckinghamshire border is as close as six miles from my house so a lot of the county birding sites are nearer to me than many Oxon ones. Linford Lakes is only twenty-five miles from my house, only marginally further away than Farmoor. I was at work on Tuesday morning although I wasn't doing much, but irritatingly I had to wait for an important delivery that I needed for the job. By a stroke of luck, without knowing about the bird, I had ordered the delivery for pre-midday but that wishful thinking hadn't allowed for my own rich vein of luck which, so it seems, is rarely classed as good when it comes to birding (obviously it's not that bad but quite often appears to be, especially at crucial moments). So I was still waiting for the pallet load of adhesive at half past one. I buckled, complained to the company that I'd made the order with, and left site so that I could get home and drive to Milton Keynes before the afternoon was spent. As I drove out of the tiny lane that serviced the site the delivery lorry drove up the other way. Offloading took another forty-five minutes because the lorry was too large to get all the way up the lane and the materials had to be "dumped" about two hundred metres away. I then had to load the bags, ten at time, into my van and transport them to the job site. By the time I'd finished I was done in and it was too late to go for the Little Crake because it'd be dark by the time I'd get there!

I was at work again on the Wednesday morning and the Crake was still present. However, thanks to the weather, I had a slice of good fortune for a change as well. Normally I work indoors but this job was outside on a patio and overnight rain had flooded it so I had the perfect excuse to head home. I collected Mrs Caley and drove straight out to Linford Lakes. I was lucky again when we managed to take one of the last places in the small carpark and thus saved ourselves an extra half mile walk to the reserve. By eleven o'clock we had taken our places in the rammed "Otter Hide" from where the bird had been seen. On our walk to the hide a chap coming the other way had told us that the Crake was showing well. By the time we got there, five minutes later, it had disappeared. That is much more typical of the Old Caley luck.

I managed to lever Mrs Caley into a decent spot by one of the windows but I had to peer over and around several heads and shoulders to view any part of the reserve. Directly in front of the inverted L-shaped hide, which allowed for a view over two different sections of the lake, was a small strip of reeds, maybe five metres wide to the right and five times that on the left. We waited and I inquired where the Little Crake had last been seen. The reedbed gave way to a finger of the lake which was enclosed further out by what is known as "The Bund", a long and wider strip of reeds. The Crake had been seen crossing a gap in the reeds on the bund about fifty metres away. I hadn't brought my scope with me but could comfortably see a Moorhen in the same general area so should be alright if the target bird reappeared there. The Little Crake had thankfully been seen heading left through the reeds. This was crucial because the day before it had adopted a "circuit" whereby it would navigate out to the bund from right next to the hide and then make the return journey. The best views were obviously obtained when it appeared in front of the hide. The Little Crakes travels took around a couple of hours so supposing it was on its return leg, it should appear in a nearer spot some time over the next hour or so. Thirty collective minds willed that to happen.

Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus)

For forty minutes we saw nothing bar a whole load of wet weather. A few people left, having already seen the Crake earlier, so I had managed to grab Mrs Caley a seat at a window so she was comfy. You have to look after your wife. I was still standing however, so my own views were still limited. Hence I was leaving a lot of the actual birdwatching to Mrs Caley and the others in the hide who had ringside seats. One of the chaps had a thermal imager as well and it was he who announced, 'The Crake is out' and, 'In the same place as before but further left'. Everybody awoke from various states of torpor at that news, and excitedly tried to "get on the bird". The momentary panic as people try to see the bird can be excruciating and there are many cries of, 'Where?', 'I can't see it' and , 'Exactly where the hell is it'. Pleas become more frantic as time goes on. I've learned to scan and listen carefully to the instructions being dealt out. The most important thing is to look where the person who called it is looking. Some people just don't get that and randomly look this way and that with no idea where the bird might be. Stay calm. It works, sometimes. So my first ever view of a Little Crake was of a diminutive bird, maybe a quarter of the size of the Moorhen seen earlier, scurrying quickly and deftly across flattened reed stems in the left hand corner of the bund. Unfortunately Mrs Caley had missed it. I couldn't photograph the bird because I'd have had to decapitate the bloke in front of me to do so.

The Little Crake became the 422nd bird on my UK life list and the 309th for this calendar year. I needed far better views though so wasn't ready to leave, unlike a chap who had been sat just to my right and two places away from Mrs Caley. As he stood up I took his place. I now had a perfect view but it was out to the right and the bird was out to the left. To see that part of the reedbed I still had to look between the heads of my wife and the man sat next to her who had commanded the best seat in the house, the one at the corner which had great views in both directions. Birding from hides can be great, especially in poor weather or when birds are difficult to approach otherwise, but when they are full to the rafters, the shelters can become uncomfortable and birding becomes awkward, but we were all in the same boat and being there offered the only chance of seeing the Crake. For another twenty minutes I squinted best I could through the small window offered to me. Many folk in the hide, myself included, had begun to speculate that the Little Crake would slowly work its way around the waterside edge of the reeds and back to the hide. On the closest, and opposite, side of the small bay that the Crake had appeared in, there was a small section, maybe five feet across where the reeds had been flattened. This small gap gave an opportunity to see the bird should it make its way back towards the hide. And that is exactly what it did!

It was the chap in the corner seat that spotted it first. The Crake sped across the gap and I just caught sight of it as it exited stage right. Fortunately the bird retraced its steps slightly and reappeared in the same gap moments later and actually stayed in view for a few seconds allowing just about everybody to gain a decent view. I fired off a few shots with the camera. The resulting images weren't great, not even good, in fact they were awful but they constituted the first images I'd ever taken of a Little Crake!

Little Crake (Porzana parva)

Now we all began willing the Little Crake to continue on its journey around the reedbed and closer to us. There was another potential place to see it about thirty metres further to the right where there was a "hole" in the reeds. I pointed it out to the rest. We started to guess how long it would take to get there, a minute, five minutes, maybe longer and so on. But it wasn't long at all before someone announced that it had reached the predicted spot. Now we all got a really good look at the bird as it crept slowly but purposefully through the vegetation. Little Crakes are small, barely Dunlin sized, but are very capable of picking their way easily through the reed stems. They have long legs with huge feet which are used to grasp onto the plants. They also swim readily between the reeds. At times this bird appeared as if it could literally walk on the water. It was chasing small morsels of food, presumably small water insects and flies, so would often move quickly when needed and make erratic movements, often doubling back a few feet to garner another tit-bit. I trained the camera at the small clearings in the reeds and fired off shots whenever the Crake darted into one. Occasionally I got lucky and managed to get the whole bird into frame but for the most part, most of the bird would be obscured behind a reed or leaf.

It was clear that the Crake was eventually going to appear right in front of the hide and luckily (I was definitely in clover) I had a great seat from which to watch it. I was able to track it almost continually as it made its way along the waters edge. The reeds however, largely obscured the bird as it travelled and trying to get clear photos of the whole bird was difficult, nigh on impossible. There always seemed to be something in the way, and the bird also had a habit of turning its back to us. The feeding habit of dipping its head towards the water also meant that more often than not, the head and bill would be the part most obscured. The vegetation also made focusing the camera tricky, so I decided to change to manual focus. That way the reeds couldn't defeat the autofocus. I like photos of the Little Crake "in habitat" anyway because creeping through reeds is exactly what the bird did.

From the rear the Crake was pretty well camouflaged in shades of brown and beige. The back patterns were not dissimilar to those of a Jack Snipe. But there was no careful and ponderous bobbing up and down from the Crake. When it moved it did so quickly and nimbly. Also, of course, the Little Crake doesn't sport the long bill of a Snipe. Its face was white which contrasted with the brown of its cap when seen from front on. The red eyes were surrounded by a black smudge, which made it look like it was wearing heavy mascara. The bill was yellowish-green and relatively short. It was the long greenish legs and feet which were most evident, and the Crake showed great agility in using those to get around in what must seem like a waterlogged forest to a bird so small.

The reeds thinned out in front of the hide and from where I sat, extended no more than twenty feet away from it. So the closer the Little Crake came to our position, then we had better and clearer views of it. Eventually it had to emerge into clear water, where it either had to use flattened platforms of reeds to walk upon or swim between stems of vegetation. To see such a bird as well as we did was definitely one of those wow moments that come along only now and again. Crakes of all varieties are skulking birds and rarely venture out of cover so this really was an awesome and memorable experience.

In all, I took over eight hundred photos of the Little Crake. Some were binned on the spot, many were out of focus, a lot had just a fraction of the bird showing. Later on at home when reviewing on the laptop it was incredible just how many images had the head of the bird missing or had just a rear view of it. And yet the Crake had been in view almost continually for forty minutes. It was only when it got to right by the hide that it couldn't hide any longer and finally gave up those clear and outstanding views. I was absolutely delighted and after initial fears that this would be another underwhelming life tick, was thrilled to get such a great sighting. The Little Crake will be a bird I'll never forget.

When the Crake disappeared amongst reeds to the far right of the hide, everybody decided that the display was over. Some left, others including me took a quick review of photos taken and many delighted conversations took place. Those still in the hide, including my good friend Bryan and myself, were all left to rue dropping our guard though when a few moments later the Crake flew back across the front of the hide, briefly landed and then scarpered back into the sanctuary of the thicker reedbed. Capturing some flight shots would have been truly amazing. Sadly nobody did.

Being given the chance of seeing the Little Crake was all made possible by the unselfish actions of many Bucks birders who gave up their own time to marshal the carpark and the hide to ensure many birders could enjoy the bird. The donations given by the grateful birders have amounted to a tidy sum too, money that can now be used to develop the site for birders to enjoy further. I'd like to thank each and every one of those folk that helped make this such a memorable twitch.