The Standlake Birder

     Black Redstart The Kenitish Plover and I have history. A history of dips that is. Most notably, last year one was reported as “showing well” on a beach on the outskirts of Burnham on Sea in Somerset. This is just over an one hour’s drive from home down the M5. So I set off in hopeful expectation of a new life tick only to find a small group of birders peering remorsefully at an entirely empty beach. After about half an hour, and rather bizarrely, a report came through saying that it was currently still “showing well” at our exact location. It wasn’t!   So when one, possible the same individual I guess, was again reported on the sea front at Burnham late last week I planned, if it stuck around that is,  another visit sometime this week. Come early afternoon on Saturday it was reported as “showing well” again on a spit by the sailing club so I yet again begged forgiveness from my every suffering wife and shot off to Burnham.    The Kentish Plov...

Pallas's Leaf Warbler ( curtsey and copyright of Nick Truby) Yes, believe it or not, sewage works are the place to be for a good spot of winter birding! They create a microclimate warmer than the surrounding countryside that can host a large fauna in the cold winter months. Birds are often attracted to this microclimate by the large numbers of insects not found elsewhere in winter. This includes resident flocks of birds such as Tits and Finches but also birds that normally migrate such as Chiffchaffs. I’ve discussed the evolutionary advantages and risks of Chiffchaffs staying put in winter rather than migrating before, see here . In amongst the Common Chiffchaffs at sewage works it is also sometimes possible to find the much rarer Siberian sub species.   The Abingdon sewage works in Oxfordshire, quite close to where I used to live, is renowned for its wintering flocks of Chiffchaff which have included one or two Siberian Chiffchaff for, I believe, at least the last 25 years.  ...

In a complete departure from my normal blogs, I thought I would post a brief review of the excellent “Vagrancy in Birds” by Alexander Lees and James Gilroy, which I have just finished reading. The scientist in me has always been fascinated by the causes of vagrancy in birds. This excellent book has certainly enlightened me in regard to our current understanding of what causes migrating birds to head off in the wrong direction, sometimes ending up many thousands of kilometres away from where they should be.   The book is split into two main sections. The first section deals with the general subject of the cause of vagrancy in birds including the factual evidence behind the various theories. The second part of the book details the recorded vagrancy in birds by species.   The first section explains the two key requirements for successful migration, namely a compass to tell you which direction to go in and a clock to tell you when to start and stop your journey.   To understa...

   Hawfinch - Forest of Dean, winter 2017 A highlight of my winter birding is my annual trip to the Forest of Dean to see Hawfinches. I was unable to go last year due to the post-Christmas lockdown so this year’s visit was even more richly anticipated than normal.   Parkend in the Forest of Dean is my usual chosen location for watching Hawfinches. Here the proven technique of using your car as a hide normally works well. I must also say that,  after a number of quite strenuous twitches recently, I was also looking forward to a much more leisurely birding session!   The story of Hawfinches in the UK is, to my mind at least, a fascinating one. It is what is known as an eruptive species meaning that it occasionally erupts from its traditional breeding grounds to invade on mass countries much further away. This is thought to be driven by a combination of breeding success and local crop failure resulting in not enough food to go around.    Records indi...

   I mentioned in my last  blog   that I was planning a visit to Slimbridge to try and photograph a very showy Glossy Ibis, a bird that I see most years in the UK but have failed to photograph to my satisfaction. I remember one occasion when one was in paddocks where it spent all its time behind fencing. It would walk slowly to the end of the fencing feeding all the time but when it got to the end of the fencing rather than walk out into the open it would turn around and go back down the fencing line! This pretty much sums up my experience of, what have always been to me at least, these shy birds.  So on Friday morning, with half reasonable weather forecast and a free day after walking the dogs, I set off to Slimbridge.      Set in the background of general decline , the heron family have been one of the very few UK avian  positives in recent years. I talked about the UK colonisation of Egrets in a previous  blog . In the short...

I haven’t set any particularly aims or targets for my birding this year. The folly of this became evident  when I was debating what to do with my planned day out birding on Tuesday. I was torn between twitching a rare American Buff-bellied Pipit in Devon or spending a day at Slimbridge where a Glossy Ibis had been showing exceptional well. I have previous history with this Pipit, having dipped it before, and have never managed a half decent photo of a Glossy Ibis. I went to bed on Monday night undecided on what to do, woke up late on Tuesday morning and hatched a plan to twitch the Pipit and then try and get the Ibis on the way home. Given that I did not fall out of bed until 06:30 and the very limited daylight, this plan, of course, did not have a  cats chance in hell of succeeding! There are two subspecies of Buff-bellied Pipit. Subspecies  rubescens  breeds in North America and Greenland and is recorded as a very rare vagrant to Western Europe. Subspecies...