The Standlake Birder

    Nightingale During the past couple of weeks I have been focused on local birding. Having now done more than a full season from our Worcestershire dream home I’m getting to grips with the local birding locations and where everything is. In general, I would say that the birding around Worcestershire is much better and more varied than that in Oxfordshire. There are numerous ex gravel pits providing equivalent or better birding to those in Oxfordshire, the local Wyre Forrest offers the woodland specialists and as a bonus has Dippers, the local Nightingales are a delight and the hills of the Malverns and Bredon have pulled in Dotterel, Ring Ouzel, Snow and Lapland Bunting over the past 18 months.   I’ve been monitoring our local Nightingales over the past couple of weeks and, in common with most migrants this year, they seem a little late in. The extended period of northerly winds in the middle of April seems to have put migrant arrivals back by around 2 weeks compared to recent years.

  Gannet Last Thursday I decided to visit the sea bird city at Bempton cliffs RSPB reserve in Yorkshire. I was hoping to see Albert the Albatross who has recently returned from his winter wanderings and also enjoy the seabird spectacle as noisy Gannets, Auks, Kittwakes and Fulmars return to the cliffs to nest. My blog on last years visit to see Albert can be found here . As discussed in this blog, Albert should be in the Southern hemisphere where Black-browed Albatross breed in the Falklands and other remote locations.  He was most likely blown off course by a storm and is thought to have been in the northern hemisphere since 2014. He has also been spotted across the North Sea in Germany and Scandinavia where he seems to spend the winter. It has always been assumed that we have just one lost Albatross wandering around Northern Europe.  Not so it would seem with conclusive proof recently of two adult Black-browed Albatrosses present simultaneously in the North Sea - with one photographe

    The Sky Lark previously known as Johnny Rotten Looking at my friend Nick’s post on his visit to Frampton RSPB last weekend made me realise that I haven’t been to Frampton, probably my favourite RSPB reserve, for ages. Frampton holds very fond memories for me with my UK ticks of Broad-billed Sandpiper, Buff-breasted Sandpiper, White-rumped Sandpiper, Pacific Golden Plover, Caspian Tern, and Black Stork all being achieved there. So off to Frampton I went on Tuesday  for a chilled out days birding.   Frampton is a two and a bit hour drive from home and leaving comparatively early avoids the commuter traffic build up on the M5 and M42. The last 30 miles is always much slower with lots of tractors and lorries and, with a break for coffee on route, I arrived just before 9. The visitor centre was closed but they have a very helpful map showing the days or previous days sightings which I always take a picture of to guide me around the large reserve. The weather was overcast but dry with t

       I spent the week following the nice surprise visit of Garganeys to our village lake, see here , birding locally at Upton Warren and Grimley. The highlight was seeing three little Gulls at Grimley which were found by another local birder. In habit they are more Tern, rather than Gull, like as they hawk for food over the water. As the name suggests,  they are small Gulls being almost Dove like in appearance. The three birds seemed to all be adults in various stages of moult into summer plumage and they have a characteristic black underwing which is very obvious in flight. They were too distant for anything other than record shots but gave very nice scope views.   I fancied a trip out somewhere this week so hatched a plan to visit Devon. My plan was to spend a couple of hours trying to see a Spotted Crake at Exminster Marshes and then visit the RSPB reserve at Labrador Bay. Spotted Crakes are often extremely elusive and sulking in habit, in fact a few years ago I spent all day in a