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| Wilson's Phalarope |
We are slowly settling into our idyllic new country home. All the locals we have met so far from the small local village of Pirton has been extremely friendly and welcoming. They have been showing us the best dog walks, brought around cakes and flowers to welcome us and Carolyn has had several of offers from horse riders happy to show her the best local hacks. The largest of our two natural ponds currently hosts ten Mallard and at least three Moorhen and looks very promising habitat for other visitors. The second small pond, which acts as an overflow to the first, is quite overgrown and scrubby and looks ripe for spring warblers. The blackthorn hedgerows around the pastures are laden with berries and I’m hopeful that winter thrushes will soon be feeding on them. The pastures themselves also look ripe for spring Yellow Wagtail and Wheatear. All very exciting things to look forward to! We have a semi-resident Green Woodpecker feeding on ants on the lawn and have had a number of flyovers from a pair of noisy Ravens.
I’ve been out and about on three more distant birding trips since we moved in. Yesterday I drove down to Pennington Marshes on the Hampshire coast where an American Wilson’s Phalarope had been found the day before. I’ve been birding in Pennington Marshes many times before, it’s very “birdie” and has pulled in a number of national rarities in the past. The Wilson’s Phalarope had been frequenting Fishtail Lagoon in the company of two Grey Phalaropes.
Phalaropes are truly wonders of the avian world. The Grey Phalarope spends most of the year far out at sea, an incredible feat given that it weighs in at a mere 50 grams. It’s almost impossible to imagine how this tiny bird survives being tossed to and fro amid gigantic waves which must surely dwarf it during the wild winter Atlantic storms. They are comparatively regular autumn passage migrants to our shores, particularly after storms, with typically a few hundred found every year. It’s a bird I would expect to see annually and, indeed, I have seen them at Pennington Marshes in previous years.
Wilson’s Phalarope is, however, a much rarer beast altogether. It is largest of Phalaropes and breeds in Western Canada and the United States. It is migratory wintering inland on salt lakes around the Andes in Argentina. It is an occasionally rare vagrant to Western Europe with an average of two or three UK autumn records per year, typically featuring first winter birds. It is named after the famous ornithologist Alexander Wilson.
On arrival at Fishtail Lagoon I spied Oxon birder Pete Law who told me that the Wilson’s had been showing almost down to touching distance. It had, as seemed to be its habit, flown up to the point further up the coast but normally would eventually come back to its favourite spot in the corner of the lagoon. After a little while the bird did indeed come back and landed distantly on a grassy island giving reasonable bin views. I was very struck by its somewhat ungainly appearance with a disproportionality long neck and Marsh Sandpiper like long needle thin bill. A Grey Phalarope flew overhead calling loudly which prompted the Wilson’s to follow and they both disappeared into the distance in the direction of the Isle of Wight with a feeling of great finality! I took solace in the fact that I had at least seen it and spent some time photographing a remarkable confiding Grey Phalarope. As I sat down with me camera it swam so close to me that I felt that I could have reached out and picked it up. I can only think that these Phalaropes rarely come into contact with Homo Destructor and are hence foolishly fearless in our presence! I then heard that another birder had seen the Wilson’s fly back into the lagoon and sure enough it was soon swimming and feeding with its grey cousin in and out of the reeds not more than 5 meters from us. I spent 30 minutes or so watching this little beauty, a UK lifer for me, until word got out more widely that it was back and the increasing number of birders present made social distancing impossible. It was definitely time me to beat a hasty retreat!
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| Wilson's Phalarope |
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| Grey Phalarope |
A week ago on Monday I had a plan to head north with the target bird being a very rare Masked Shrike that had been found in Northumberland over the previous weekend. My plan was to drive up the M1 as far as Sheffield, check if the Masked Shrike had been reported and if not divert east to Spurn or Flamborough head. Sure enough the Shrike had done an overnight bunk so I headed east to Spurn with, I have to say, a certain amount of trepidation as I had seen terrible scenes of what looked like a large mob of birders completely ignoring social distancing viewing a showy Red-flanked Bluetail the previous day. I figured that the Spurn area was sufficiently large that I could avoid the crowds and, in fact, it was much quieter than the previous day as the Bluetail had taken umbridge at all the attention and departed. I walked along the cannel path and paused to take pictures of a small group of very showy Spotted Flycatchers, soon to be off to warmer climes. I then drove the short distance to Easington in search of my second Red-breasted Flycatcher of the Autumn. This individual was frequenting a small wood near the oil terminal. It was equally as shy as the bird I had seen the previous week in Wells and only gave very fleeting views deep in the vegetation.
Spotted Flycatcher
My final port of call of the day was Flamborough head in search of Yellow-browed warblers. Given that their nearest breeding population is several thousand kilometres away in the Ural Mountains and that they winter in southern Asia, remarkable numbers somehow find their way to western Europe in the autumn. In a good autumn several thousand can be reported in the UK. They are very attractive little warblers, not a great deal larger than a Goldcrest, with a strong yellow supercilium and two yellow wing bars. I first tried the Old Fall planation, a famous spot for rare birds, where I bumped into Mick’s younger brother, a man of few words! With no sign of Yellow-browed Warblers I moved onto the south landing where seven had been reported that morning. I meet another birder called Phil, also from Worcestershire, and together we scanned the canopy where a flock of Chiffchaffs were restless feeding and we eventually spotted our hoped for tiny jewel. It was much too high and obscure in the canopy for photography so here’s one I took last year at the Cotswolds water park.
Yellow-browed Warbler
Last week I also made the comparatively short drive down to Berrow where a Kentish Plover had been found on the beach the previous day. I actually waited for it to be reported on my bird alert app and then did the hour or so drive down the M5. On arrival I met other birders who had been on the exact same spot on beach at the time that the bird was reported and had not seen it. So the report was quite a mystery and the only waders on view were little Plovers, Dunlin and Sanderling with no sign of the Kentish. There was a howling westerly blowing in from the sea and I did not dally long before heading back home.
Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!
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