The Standlake Birder

Kingfisher When I started my own blog I decided to focus on 3 of my passions in life, birds, physics and gardening. While this totally bizarre combination is likely to be hellishly boring to most normal sane people, I thought it would at least guarantee a certain uniqueness! Standlake Pit 60 is my default local birding patch being only a short drive from my home. I have been watching and photographing birds here for some 6 years since my retirement from full time tedium.  Having observed six cycles of the seasons at pit 60 I have a calendar in my mind of what I hope to see and photograph when and September and October are Kingfisher time. We have 3 bird perches outside the Langley lane hide used by Common Terns in the summer and Kingfishers mainly in autumn. Kingfishers need clear water to fish and the Thames in autumn tends to be greenish and opaque while the water at pit 60 is crystal clear. It is said that female Kingfishers wear lipstick as the male has a...

Knott Yesterday, at least by normal Oxfordshire standards, there was a mini influx of autumn birds with a Wryneck photographed at Otmoor and a Little Stint found with a Knott, Ruff and Dunlin on the Farmoor causeway. Little Stint Ruff  I really like the late afternoon light at Farmoor in the autumn. In lacks the harshness of the summer sun and is favorable orientated with respect to the causeway. I find the warmth of the late afternoon autumnal sun, while perhaps not representing the bird in its true colour balanced appearance, creates a pleasing warm visual effect, especially with rufus waders.   Knott Little Stint So it was off to Farmoor for late afternoon photography of the waders. While the light is wonderful at this time of year, it also brings its challenges typically requiring quite high ISO speeds and low F-numbers generating a rather shallow depth of field. I had a very enjoyable hour or so watching and photographing the birds...

On Saturday a  rare Eastern Olivaceous Warbler was found at Farlington marshes in Hampshire. I believe this is only the 22 nd  UK record of this warbler more usually found in a Greek olive grove or an Algerian oasis. It would also represent a life tick for me. Family and other commitments dictated that the first day I could sensibly twitch this mega was today. I decided to wait until the bird was reported on RBA before setting off on the 90-minute journey from home. Somewhat worryingly, the bird was not reported until almost 10 am and was noted as being “seen only briefly”. I’ve been caught out by such reports before as some of them have have turned out to be erroneous but  I decided to be optimistic and set off anyway On arrival there were 30 or so birders present and I was told that the bird had been seen briefly some 15 minutes prior to my arrival. I also discovered that some birders present had spent 5 hours not seeing the bird the previo...

Buff-breasted Sandpiper I was considering a trip down to Cornwall over last weekend with two targets in mind. Firstly, to twitch a mega rare brown booby that had been reported fairly regularly from the Lizard over the course of last week. Secondly, to try and get some good photos of an American vagrant, a buff-breasted sandpiper, that was on an old airfield at Davidstow. I’ve only ever had rather distant scope views of this wader and photos appearing online seemed to indicate that this bird was fairly confiding. I had pretty much given up on the idea on Saturday as there had been no reports on line of the booby that day but a report late afternoon soon had me booking a pub b&b for the night and heading down to Cornwall. When I got to the lizard on Sunday morning there were 30 or so birders spread out along the cliffs and no reported sightings. In fact, the validity of the previous days reports was being question by those present. With no sightings by late morning...

Rare bird alert made me aware of a bird that certainly piqued my interest yesterday afternoon.  It was reported as either a (very rare) female eastern black-eared wheatear or a (rare) pied wheatear. Later in the afternoon RBA “confirmed” that it was the former and I immediately set about planning a trip for today. The eastern black-eared wheatear spends its summer in the  eastern mediterranean and over winters in the Sudan so this individual was somewhat lost! The bird was located on the Lancashire coast and as such involved a drive on my beloved (sic) M42 and M6. I was faced with the choice of either going early before the presence of the bird had been reconfirmed, hence avoiding the Monday morning rush hour, or waiting for it to be reconfirmed around 7 am. I gambled, luckily as it turned out, on the former and left home at 05:30. The weather on arrival was cold, wet and windy and, very wisely, the bird was hiding almost out of sight under a rock. After an hour ...