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| Whoops wrong type of Western !!! |
A rare Pacific Golden Plover, a most attractive bird and one missing from my UK life list, has been frequenting Frampton Marsh RSPB reserve on the Lincolnshire wash for the past week or so. At the weekend we had a summer party in one of our paddocks and with family staying over Monday was realistically the first day I could go. To be absolutely honest, I was also feeling a little fragile for most of Sunday! We had 40 or so people from the village at our garden party and one of my favourite real ales, Enville, on tap which flowed rather too copiously!
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| Lets get the party started! |
When an even rarer Western Sandpiper was also found at the weekend near to Frampton on the wash at Snettisham RSPB reserve the motivation to twitch reached near boiling point!
The Western Sandpiper is indeed a truly rare bird with just 10 accepted records on the BBRC list to the end of 2019. The Collin’s bird bible rates it as a 3 star rarity equating to one or a few records per decade and states that it is the very rarest of the American Stints in Europe. It breeds in western Alaska and winters along the Pacific Coast from Oregon to Peru, along the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey south to South America, and along the Gulf Coast.
For those who have never been to the wash it is very tidal. When the tide is in the water comes right up to the shingle with no mud exposed. When the tide is out the sea disappears over the horizon leaving vast mud flats, the key feeding attraction for the many returning waders present at this time of year. It is hence essential to check the tide times before making a birding trip. When the tide is out the birds disperse widely across the mud flats and finding a rare bird in amongst the many common waders is neigh on impossible. I hence planned to arrive before high tide which on Monday morning was 08:30 requiring me to be up at the traditional twitchers hour of silly o’clock. I never struggle to get up at this time when a twitch is in the offering, in fact the excitement of what’s to come normally supresses any desire to sleep.
Somewhat oddly, I have never been to Snettisham on the Norfolk coast southeast of Kings Lynn. At silly o’clock it was a fairly straight forward mainly motorway drive that had me on the Norfolk coast just after 08:00. The bird had been reported that morning at around 07:00 when the tide was coming in but when I got there the high tide had pushed all the waders together in a large flock under the shingle bank. I was assured that the Western was probably in there somewhere but with the snoozing birds cheek by jowl I had to wait patiently for the tide to start to ebb. After 30 minutes or so the tide was definitely on the turn and the flock became increasingly restless. Then, lo and behold, the Western appeared and started feeding on the shoreline in front of us some 20 to 30 meters away. It was very noticeably smaller, more akin to a Little Stint in size, than the many Dunlin present but with surprisingly long legs which were almost as long as its common cousin. Its feeding habit was really quite peculiar, rapid, and very erratic zig-zagging from side to side. After watching it through my scope for a few minutes I suddenly realised that I should be taking photos!! At this point my 1DX mark 3 decided that it would be great fun to get stuck in video mode – grrrrr!. I turned it on and off a few times and finally got it reset just in time for the Western to fly off with the Dunlin onto a much more distant mud flat – a great photo opportunity missed to add to my long list of photographic failures – absolute magic! It was now around 90 minutes since the high tide and the water had disappeared into the distance. I watched the Western for a while longer through my scope and then made my way back to the car with the intention of heading off to Frampton some 60 minutes away. I sat in my car and took a very early sandwich lunch, breakfast had been a long time ago, and checked RBA to see the Western was again being reported as showing well – how could this be with the tide right out? I was thinking of going back for a second attempt at photography when I saw two returning birders who told me that the bird was still very distant. I guess one man’s showing well is another’s spec on the horizon!
The 30 mile drive to Frampton was much more arduous with static holiday traffic much of the way. I’ve been to Frampton many times and it is one of my favourite RSPB reserves. I walked up to the visitors centre and consorted the very helpful map which shows the location of the days bird sightings. The very friendly RSPB staff confirmed that the Pacific Golden Plover was on the grassland south of the sea wall.
The Pacific Golden Plover is again a rare bird in its own right. Colin’s rates it as a two star rarity equating to one or a few records per year. It breeds in the Arctic tundra from northernmost Euro Siberia into western Alaska. It is migratory and winters in south Asia and Australasia. A few also winter in California and Hawaii. It is very similar in appearance to our comparatively common Eurasian Golden Plover. It is smaller, slimmer, and relatively longer-legged than the European Golden Plover which also has white axillary feathers.
I was expecting the Pacific to be in a flock of Eurasian Golden Plovers and had hence read up on the key ID features the night before. Surprisingly, however, the RSPB staff told me there were no Eurasian Golden Plovers present and that the Pacific was associating with a flock of lapwings. As I walked down to the south sea wall the Pacific was immediately obvious on the grassland, wandering slowly around and pecking at the ground. Having messed up on photos earlier I immediately ratted off a few record shots and then settled down to watch the bird through my scope. It was a strikingly elegant bird in summer plumage with a dark black throat and ear-coverts stretching down to its breast and belly. Its back was coarsely patterned in sparkling gold and brown. After 20 minutes or so it flew further up towards the visitor centre and landed more distantly. There was my second life tick of the day, it was as easy as that!
The salt marsh was hosting two Spotted Redshank which were just moulting out of summer plumage. This is a bird which transforms from a, dare I say, rather drab winter individual into a startlingly almost completely black bird in summer plumage. One of the birds was feeding comparatively close to the viewing point. They feed much more deeply and energetically than their common cousin and I spent an hour of so watching and enjoying them in a very chilled out manner rather smug in the knowledge that a successful days twitching was under my belt.
My aim this year has been to build my UK list and try and get better photographs of some common birds where I have failed in the past. I made a conscious decision not to target any size of UK list this year. It has paid off in terms of new UK birds with 14 added so far this year. I’ve also succeeded in getting good photographs of birds where I have failed in the past, e.g. Wood Warbler and Pied Flycatcher. Overall though, I would say that the focus on rare birds has made the photography take a back seat on occasion this year. A good case in point being the Flamborough Thrush Nightingale twitch where all day was spent achieving one flight view and some very obscured views in the back of the hedge without the camera being troubled at all.
At home I’ve been witness to some rather strange avian activity. We had a second brood of Swallows in one of the three nests in our barn. The nest is very close to the roof eves and during the hot weather the very immature chicks stared throwing themselves out of the nest onto the saw dust floor. I guess the stifling heat was forcing them to escape the confines of their claustrophobic nest. Several did not survive the fall but some did. I was in a quandary what to do. If I left them on the ground I was not sure the parents would feed them and they would be extremely vulnerable to the local rat population. So I got a ladder and put them back in the nest. As I was climbing down the ladder there was a plop plop sound as one after another they jumped out of the nest landing some 10 foot down on the saw dust. At this point I decided that I would just have to let nature take its course and not interfere. I kept the door shut to try and keep out predators while still providing parent access over door. The chicks cuddled up in the corner of the barn and to my amazement and very pleasant surprise, the parents continued to feed them over the next ten days and they flourished. They were soon approaching fledging size with lots of wing flapping exercise going on. I couldn’t see how they could take to the wing for the first time from the floor and pondered putting them up on the eves but I decided that I had learnt my lesson from my previous unnecessary intervention and left them alone. Two days ago I opened the barn door fully and one immediately took to the wing and flew out into the great wide world as though it had been flying its whole life. I left the door open and within 30 minutes they had all flown their strange temporary floor accommodation! I absolutely love natures ability to surprise and enthral.
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| Going very soon! |
Finally, on the future of birding. I was reading an article in new scientist this week about capturing DNA from the air and using it to identify what wildlife is present locally. It was tried out at a zoo and the scientists managed to identify most of the birds and animals present from sampling the air. Perhaps future generations of birders will use a pocket DNA sampler to find out what birds are around but to me that would take most of the fun out of the hobby!
Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!
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