Timed Out!

Timed tetrad visits for the BTO 2007-11 Atlas finish on Sunday, and I have completed my last two sites.   Thanks to Malcolm and Sally for their help and encouragement in this.   Two sites in a day is never easy, but we had little choice with other commitments and once you get out there it's always interesting.    So after two one hour surveys at Trossley Country Park and surrounds it was over to New Ash Green for the same. 

Trossley

It has been fascinating to see how patterns change with the seasons, and although the old favourites are always present there have been a few surprises, mainly the number of birds of prey with buzzard seen in each of the four visits and great views over both sites, with several birds overhead and breeding sparrowhawk near New Ash Green yesterday.   The most numerous bird on every occasion in both sites has been wood pigeon.

The best visits were (unsurprisingly) the April/May surveys where there was great evidence of breeding birds, with good views of blackcap, green woodpecker, goldcrest, blue and great tits, wren, whitethroat and treecreeper at Trossley and kestrel, long-tailed tit, chiffchaff, whitethroat, goldfinch and garden warbler at New Ash Green.  The birds were vocal and visible with lots of breeding activity to see.  

Our stars for nesting birds has to go to the great spotted woodpecker family near New Ash Green though, the adults were busily food collecting and once we had settled quietly with a view of their nesting hole they gave us a great show of their parental devotion, lots of contact calls, flying back and forth with full beaks to feed the young.   You could hear the chicks calling from the nest as they kept in constant contact with the parent birds.   "Timed" tetrad visit didn't quite fit the bill on this one and we did stop the clock for a while so that we could just soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the moment . . . .

One of the reasons why the surveys are so enjoyable and why I'll miss doing them . . . . . . still there's always the weekly garden watch, the roving reports, etc, etc. . .  just going to clean my bins!

Arctic Adventures - Day 3

So, having got over the journey, today was the beginning of the real adventure. Our first sighting was of a harp seal before breakfast and keen and eager as we were for food, the seal won hands down and all excited travellers took to the decks with our binoculars and cameras (not to mention several layers of clothes as the temperature was only about 6 degrees).

Landing

After breakfast and a briefing from the expedition leader we were off to put on the thermal and waterproof layers for our first zodiac trip to land.   The aim was in Kongsfjorden and a walk at Bloustrandhalvoya taking us over tundra and boggy land where walking uphill through treacle would have almost been easier.   At least we didn't feel the cold as we used our breakfast calories to scale the dizzy heights.  

The priority for me was (as always) avian, however the specialist plants and flowers were a great draw, and when you have an expert botanist around like Jenny it makes it all the more enjoyable.

Red-throated Diver on the nest

Back to feathers, however, and we saw arctic skua, two pairs of red-throated diver one on a nest which was on an island in the middle of a small glacial lake.   Two pairs of barnacle geese one with two young and the other with three.   On a further lake we saw long-tailed duck, a male and two females, as we watched them from a distance the male started to display, a great sight.

Jenny spent much time and patience explaining the plants to us all, with purple saxifrage, pale whitlow grass, hairy lousewort and drooping saxifrage being the ones I can remember. 

Our guide Philippe explained how the 'Old Red' stone conglomerate which stretches from as far away as Greenland all through Spitsbergen and was brought by the last ice age.

Reindeer

As we walked 6 reindeer were spotted, one with spectacular antlers and the women were both amazed and envious of their eyelashes!
We ended up by a settlement made by prospectors looking for marble mining potential, unfortunately as soon as the rock is moved south it dries up and crumbles.   After we had watched very protective long-tailed skua near their nest it was back to the zodiac and on to the ship for lunch.

As we dined in style the Captain sailed to another location where we hoped to be able to walk on a glacier, however another boat as moored up where we needed to be so we moved further on to Krossfjorden and a place called Tynerebukta.
Here we had our second zodiac trip and saw reindeer remains - this prompted a discussion about arctic foxes where the dominant foxes live near the coast and feed on seabird colonies, ducks, goslings and even adult geese when in eclipse.   The inland (less dominant foxes) live a harder life without these ample food sources and they have to scavenge on dead and weak reindeer.   As polar bears rarely kill a reindeer they have no real predators, their main sources of death are starvation or fighting other males for territory.

As we walked we saw an unnamed bronze coloured funghi and more reindeer with young about a month old. 

Common eider and king eider were spotted together which gave us a great opportunity to compare the females which when apart seem almost impossible.   When they are together however, the king either female looks smaller, with a slightly smaller head and a more golden brown plumage than the common.   We also saw common eider with over a creche of over 20 ducklings.

Reindeer Antlers in a tangle

As we walked we also saw puffin, little auk, fulmar, kittiwake and brunnich's gulliemot.   Two bearded seals were spotted on bergy-bits, and two pairs of reindeer antlers had also been washed ashore tangled in some thick rope.

At dinner we had a long discussion about bird ringing, and also discussed sub-species and different colour morphs - needless to say I didn't stay up late!

Arctic Adventures - Day 2

Longyearbyen Airport

As we were staying at the hotel next door to the airport we were able to go and check-in then return for a leisurely breakfast before we left the hotel, and began the really exciting part of the trip - into the Arctic Circle.   The flight goes from Oslo to Tromso where you have to get off the 'plane and go through immigration, then back on the same 'plane (in the same seat!) to fly to Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen.
Despite the fact that they do this every day, the flight crew were very keen for us to know exactly when we flew over Heligoland (where the heligoland traps were first devised and so named) at 10.45 am, and even more exciting, when we passed into the Arctic Circle at 10.58 am. 
We had ensured that extra layers were available to put on when we landed as we had several hours free to wander around the town where the air temperature was around 6 degrees with a wind chill.   As we walked around the town we took photos of the scenery and watched snow bunting in their summer plumage, there were also Svalbard poppy and several saxifrages. 
Lots of little auks, blue morph fulmar, puffin, black guillemot, and brunnich's guillemot were flying along the harbour.  Purple sandpiper were feeding along the water's edge.

Snow Bunting

Down near the husky kennels a pair of arctic skuas had nested and had two young.   Arctic tern were annoyed by them and mobbing as the skuas flew too near to the terns nest.    The young skua were squabbling and trying to grab each other by the neck - typical skuas - but no parental control!  
There was some talk of an ivory gull, and as one of our fellow travellers was perched on the edge of the beach with a rather long camera lens we decided to investigate.   Good instinct as Roger was photographing the ivory gull, and some rather passable pictures were taken. 
Longyearbyen is a typical outpost-town, with four months of total daylight and 6 months of dark it's not suprising that it has it's own special character, the locals need to be admired for their stoic ability to put up with such a remote setting on a permanent basis.   It was soon time for us to board our home for the next 9 nights - the Antarctic Dream - this vessel is one down from an ice breaker and spends our summers in the Arctic and our winters in the Antarctic.   The sailing crew are Chilean, and the hotel side of the team are from New Zealand, Philippines and the UK, an eclectic mix.   So at 4.00 pm we wandered along the harbourside past skidoo parks (car parks for the rest of us) the church and the old coal mining company to start our cruise.

The Antarctic Dream

Once everyone had joined the ship, and we had been shown our cabins the next challenge was to find our way back to the lounge area for our safety briefing.   This involved the sounding of the muster station alarm, dashing back to our cabin to put the life jacket on then back upstairs again to the muster station and a roll call.   We also had to work out if our cabin was on port or starboard, and then which lifeboat we would go to.   We were assured that they wouldn't leave us behind if we did need to abandon ship and joined the wrong queue.   Let's hope we don't have to test them out!
After dinner most of us drifted back out on deck, with a few warm layers on.   We just couldn't resist watching the passing land- and sea-scape.   We stayed out until 10.00 pm, when a shower and bed called us.  The boat rolled around and the engine was noisy

Ivory Gull

but we went to bed tired but happy to be on the cruise at last.

Arctic Adventures - Day 1

See you were all missing me and where have I been?   On top of the world!   Literally. . . .
Due to some very good connections I was given the chance of a short-notice expedition to the Arctic archipelago of Spitsbergen.  Just what is a person to do when something as exciting as that falls in their lap - no option but to go obviously, and what a brilliant decision that was.

Norwegian Ringlet

However, first we had to get there, and the trip began with a SAS flight from Heathrow to Oslo on Monday afternoon.   Relieved that we had arrived with our luggage intact there was time for a short walk around the hotel, which was next to the airport, for some birds and flowers.   My first bird was a hooded crow from the aeroplane, and I soon added house martin, jackdaw, white wagtail, crossbill, siskin, magpie and the alltime favourite, feral pigeon.   I also saw a ringlet and a micro moth, possibly one of the veneers or agriphila?

White Mallow

As prices in the hotel restaurant ran at about £50 for a main course and pizza was about £25, we decided to dine in style in the cafe at the airport - coke was £6.50, but the brie, bacon and cranberry was gorgeous.   Tiredness is always an odd sensation when you have 24 hour daylight, and luckily there were black-out curtains.   Sleep was patchy as excitement over the next day's journey stopped my brain from switching off.

Butterflies and Dragonflies

What a superb day on the North Kent Marshes!   I attended a walk arranged on the RSPB reserve at Northward Hill, and led by Malcolm and Roger.   The purpose to find butterflies and damselflies.



Shaded broad-bar moth

 We saw 12 species of butterfly: large white, small white, marbled white, small skipper, ringlet, gatekeeper, green-veined white, red admiral, meadow brown, small heath and the most exciting sightings of the day were purple hairstreak and white letter hairstreak.   Roger demonstrated the lemon-scented pheremone of the green-veined white male, which was fascinating to experience.

We also identified two species of moth (although there were in fact quite a few day-flying moths that we did not concentrate on),shaded broad-bar scotopteryx chenopodiata and cinnabar tyria jacobaeae.   We also saw many caterpillars of the cinnabar on ragwort.

Purple Hairstreak

This afternoon we moved to Cliffe Pools, RSPB reserve trying to find the reported Lestes barbarus - southern emerald damselfly or migrant spreadwing (spreadwing due to the way it holds its wings).   The track leading to the side of the reserve we were interested in is rutted and much comment was made about the lack of use of the accelerator!  However after a long and tedious journey we finally reached the area of interest.   There were five gents scouring the ditches on the side of the fields, and before too long we had caught up with a successful group.   They believed they were looking at a female.   In fact after referring to the book, and after we had managed to get one in a tube for closer examination, we realised they had a male and we also found a female for comparison.

As we watched we also found scarce emerald damselfly lestes dryas and the more we looked the more blue-tailed damselflies we saw, including one of the 'heterochrome' form.

White letter hairstreak

More photos from today appear on my flickr account (see above).

Thanks to Malcolm and Roger for leading a great walk and for identifying so many species for us, many of them a first for me.

Race for Life

Just got back from the 10K Race for Life in Maidstone.   A few bottle-necks along the way but Heather and I managed it in 1hr 18 mins, not too bad, and it leaves scope for improvement next year!    [can't believe I actually put that]

Anyway, although I obviously did not have my binoculars with me as I ran, I did keep a list:
Mute swan, greylag, canada geese, crow, jackdaw, chiffchaff, blackcap, black-headed gull.

A big 'Thank you' to all those who supported us - it certainly spurs you on to know that so many people have put their faith in us.

Off for a lie down now.

Rainham Marshes RSPB Reserve

As I was due to return from my friends in Essex today, my friends kindly arranged to go for a walk at Rainham Marshes today, which saved me having to charge through the early morning rush-hour at the QEII Bridge.
We met at 10.00 am and headed straight for the spot where grasshopper warbler had been reported. Irene had been lucky enough to see this bird when the group visited earlier this year, so we were relying on her to help in our quest. However we didn't need to go far down the path just outside the reserve before we could hear the distinctive "reeling" of this lovely little bird. Just to hear it was great but then it really thrilled us with good views too. Even though the wind was blowing the bush around violently the bird continued to sit up singing away and showing off for all he was worth. We watched and listened, delighted that our ears were still catching the high pitch, and eventually had to drag ourselves away but not before we had a good but rather speedy view of a sparrowhawk hunting low over the fields.
There had been reports of yellow-legged gull and with hundreds of gulls on the river, the reserve and over the nearby fields and landfill site it really was asking the impossible to track an individual bird down, we did see black-headed, herring and lesser-black-backed gull. Eventually we contented ourselves with the wildlife we could identify, and enjoyed peacock, red admiral, essex skipper and small skipper, along with occasional dragonflies and damselflies (not quite as numerous as they had been at Old Hall yesterday). We saw family groups of coot, great crested and little grebe, young blue tits, greenfinches, goldfinch, house sparrow and adult blackbird and reed warbler carrying food. A kestrel hovered near the railway line, patrolling his patch diligently.

Lizard

Marsh frogs were calling, a lizard was sunning itself on one of the wooden bridges and we saw several feeding stations and latrines for water vole (although the animal itself eluded us today). A rather large thistle was later identified by the staff as a cotton thistle. We noted chicory, purple loosestrife, ladies bedstraw, several pea and vetch varieties amongst others.
A new hide has been opened recently, and although it currently has no real view, hopefully the plans to landscape the area and instal a further scrape will provide excellent viewing opportunities in the future.
Time marched on and the call of the cafe proved too much, tea and cake needed to be sampled before we embarked on the journey back to Kent in the evening rush hour.
Another great day out, well worth the £3 toll money . . . and a free hearing test thrown in what more could you ask for!
n.b. this post is also available on the Gravesend RSPB Group Website

Old Hall Marshes RSPB Reserve



Old Hall Marshes

Several times a year I visit friends in Essex and on one of the days Ken and I usually choose a new birding site to explore.   Today's excursion was to Old Hall Marshes RSPB Reserve near Maldon.Before your visit you need to apply for a Visitor's or parking permit, so visitor numbers are strictly controlled with the car park only taking a few cars.   The site is coastal/tidal marsh similar to the North Kent Marsh reserves which are a little nearer to home.   On one side there is the picturesque sight of Bradwell Power Station and on the other tidal salt marshes, inlets and scrapes with cattle grazing.   This is not a site for those expecting a cafe and shopping experience, nor indeed for those requiring more than a "bush stop".  However in the style of an old-fashioned "bird reserve" it totally fits the bill.    The farm buildings house the RSPB offices and the staff are knowledgeable and welcoming, providing us with a map showing both the trail walks and also the sector divisions so that any interesting sightings can be reported in the correct area of the reserve.
Armed with this information, we were off on the 6.3 mile walk (there is also a shorter 3.5 mile circuit).   Our first obliging avian sighting was a delightful sedge warbler which gave us great views, if a little too camera-shy for Ken's liking.   After several attempts to capture the moment we gave up and left him to his singing.   Several butterflies were seen including large nummbers of skipper (still to be identified as I write), small heath, peacock, meadow brown, and a "blue" which we will have to put down to experience.   There were also huge numbers of dragonflies and damselflies, the easiest id was the emperor, after that it was a constant queue of female ruddy darters - probably over 100 seen throughout the day.   

Skipper


Kestrel, Wood pigeon, chaffinch and cormorant were soon added to our list, then the first of at least 3 marsh harriers appeared.  There have been up to 5 juveniles on the reserve this year apparently.   First we saw a couple of females, then a striking male joined them, flying towards one of the females and doing a mock "food exchange"- this happened several times during the day.   A family of whitethroat delighted us with their flying antics for several minutes before tiring of the attention and moving away.   Reed buntings were also in abundance with several family groups seen as we continued our circuit.    On the first scrape we saw black-headed guil, mute swan, lapwing, black-tailed godwit, canada geese, greylag, a loan ruff, pochard, redshank and great crested grebe.
On the sea-ward side huge numbers of shelduck were gathering against the rising tide - there must have been at least 60 of them.   Several curlew were also moving between the rills in the inlets.   Skylark were singing away as we stopped on the leeward side of the sea wall for a well-earned lunch.
Just over half-way round there is a sign "to the viewpoints" which we took.   (N.B.You should be aware that if you take this option you will need to return to the main track to continue the walk as it is a dead-end - we learned our lesson the hard way!)   However our reward for all that extra walking was common tern, spoonbill, little egret, little grebe, spotted redshank in full summer plumage, and reed warbler.


Spider Nest in Grass Seed

Probably three-quarters of the way round and to boost our flagging spirits (well it was a hot day) bearded tits were heard "pinging" in a small patch of reeds, first one, then two, and finally three were spotted.   One was a superb male who felt quite justified in showing himself off to best advantage just below the grass seed heads where it was impossible to photograph him.   The cheeky devil flew several times, and always remained stationary in just the wrong spot for a photographer.   After enjoying their antics for a while we moved on as our journey home and a cup of tea called us ever-onwards.
On the final half mile swallow and house martin were swooping overhead and a common sandpiper flew low over our heads, calling as it went.