The Standlake Birder

Pintail The end of autumn and start of winter brings a seasonal change to my birding. The mad autumn rush to drop everything and twitch a rare bird being largely replaced by the all together more leisurely and chilled pursuit of days out winter birding in my favourite spots. I am very fortune indeed to have three good winter birding sites within an hour’s drive from home.         Slimbridge, at least in my humble opinion, comes into its own in winter. Large flocks of overwintering wildfowl gather providing a dazzling spectacle guaranteed  to lighten up the shortest and dullest days of winter.   My two other favourite haunts are the winter woodlands at the Forest of Dean and Wyre Forest.  Both can be good for wintering birds with the Forest of Dean being particularly good for Hawfinches while, later in winter, the Wyle Forest is good for Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers.   On Wednesday I hence decided to dig out my thermals from the bottom of my clothes drawer and head off to Slimbridge for a

Little Auk On Saturday I set off on a mission to fill a gaping hole in my UK bird list by means of a Little Auk which had recently taken up residence at Weymouth Harbour. I would not call it a rare bird as such, many hundreds pass down the east coast during late autumn on migration, but views are normally distant and you can spend the whole day sea watching without seeing one only to find a report of a hundred flying by the spot you were starting at a few days later. These sea watching views are normally distant and brief and somewhat physically challenging! What is rare is to have one stay in a pleasant location allowing decent views. This exact opportunity presented itself when last week a bird took a liking to Weymouth harbour and its multitude of moored boats.   The little Auk as its name suggests is our smallest and most northern Auk, no bigger than a Starling. It is black and white with a very small stubby bill. In flight its small wings are flapped rapidly in a distinctive whirl

Pied Wheatear I hit state pension age on Wednesday and decided to celebrate with a birders style lie in, i.e. up at 04:30 to drive for 4 hours to see a Pied Wheatear near Sunderland!  The early morning drive was uneventful punctuated only by a couple of short break and coffee stops.  RBA came on-line at 07:00 but there were no reports of the bird. I was not too alarmed by this as it had been there for a week  and I figured  that most people who wanted to see it probably had.   The adult male Pied Wheatear is a spectacular looking black and white bird but almost all UK vagrants are first winter birds, presumably indicating that inexperienced migrators are much more likely to get lost.  It has a wide breeding range from Southeast Europe through to Western Asia. In the spring and summer it is found eastwards from Romania and Bulgaria right across to Afghanistan.  In the autumn in migrates to  Northeast Africa for the winter.  It favours  rough, rocky countryside and is often seen perching

Red-flanked Bluetail My birding friend Nick has started to call me lucky Jim based on the run of birding good fortune I’ve had in recent months. Well it had to end sometime didn’t it?   A week ago on Friday  a mega rare Taiga Flycatcher was found at Flamborough in Yorkshire in an area called South Landing. It seems highly likely that this was one and the same bird as a one day wonder a short distance away at Flamborough head in October. There was the added attraction of a Red-flanked Bluetail, an attractive small passerine, also at South Landing.   The weekend was taken up with looking after grandchildren and other family stuff so the first day I could twitch the Flycatcher was Monday. On Sunday night I looked at the overnight forecast for Flamborough with some trepidation, clear sky and light southerly winds, ideal for the flycatcher to continue its migration!  I’d also seen video taken of it on Sunday showing it preening profusely, often a sign that it was packing its bag ready for d

   Shore Lark   If truth be told, it’s been a funny old autumn for birding. While there have been a few absolutely stonking megas, what my friend Jeremy calls the supporting cast, i.e. good scarce birds, have been by and large absent.     Nonetheless I wanted to do a day out somewhere this week and so decided to drive over to Norfolk for the day on Wednesday for two particular target species. Firstly, a small flock of Shore Larks occupying their fairly reliable  late autumn and winter home at Hockham gap. Secondly a Short-toed Lark  in a field some 20 miles further down the coast at West Runcorn.   I left home just after 05:30 and commenced the drive eastwards to Norfolk which normally takes about three and a half hours. Leaving early normally gets me around the M42 before it turns into a car park around Birmingham. All was going to plan as I got to Peterborough and I stopped for a coffee and to pick up a roll for lunch. After Peterborough I ran into very slow moving traffic which even