The Standlake Birder

      I was toying with the idea of doing some seabird watching down in Cornwall this week. There have numerous reports of early rarer Shearwaters, mainly Sooty and Cory’s, being pushed towards the coast by strong south or south westerly winds. I was hence eyeing Wednesday for a possible trip down to the Porthgwarra headland for a day staring out to sea through my scope.   Everything changed when at 14:20 yesterday a mega rare Turkestan Shrike was relocated near Bempton Cliffs RSPB reserve in Yorkshire.  It had initial been seen by the finder mid-afternoon on Monday near the cliff tops. It was very wet and had presumably just flown in off the sea perching on the first bit of dry land it found. The finder managed a few good pics before it flew off inland, disappeared and could not be relocated. Fast forward to Tuesday when it was re-found inland on a track near a pig farm along cliff lane near Bempton.   I became aware of it when I checked RBA around 15:30 and a plan was quickly hatched

   Ruff   I spent Friday at  Slimbridge with two particular target birds in mind, namely the Spotted Redshank and Ruff ,both of which go through a truly metamorphic moult into summer breeding plumage. The Spotted Redshank transforms from a rather plain, mainly pale, plumage  into being almost completely black with the white spots which give it its name. It breeds across northern Scandinavia and the northern Palearctic and migrates  south to the Mediterranean, southern Britain, France, tropical Africa, and tropical Asia for the winter. As soon as it leaves its artic breeding grounds it starts to mount into its pale winter plumage and by the time late summer migrants reach our shores they have either fully or partially moulted. It is hence somewhat usual to see these birds in the UK in their black dinner suits.  Failed breeders , however, leave their artic breeding grounds earlier and indeed two recently arrived at Slimbridge in full summer plumage, thus generating an irresistible urge f

    On Monday I visited Trimingham near Cromer on the Norfolk coast where a small flock of European Bee-eaters are attempting to nest in a disused quarry.   The European Bee-eater is rated in the Colins bird bible as a one star rarity meaning they are an annual vagrant in some numbers. They  breed in southern Europe and in parts of north Africa and western Asia, wintering in tropical Africa. They occur as a spring overshoot north of their range, with occasional breeding in northwest Europe. Climate change, though, is certainly extending the normal breeding range of the Bee-eater northwards.   The species has bred in Britain on just a handful of occasions, with the last attempt occurring in Nottinghamshire in 2017 when, unfortunately, all three nests failed. I, along with many other birders and non-birders alike, visited the Nottinghamshire site where a viewpoint at an appropriate distance was set up to watch these very charismatic birds.   European Bee-eaters are only rivalled by Rolle

  Spotted Sandpiper The slow spring for very rare birds in the UK has continued into early summer with nothing in the past two weeks on the bird radar requiring a drop everything twitch. Without the stunning Elenora’s falcon in Kent last month the spring would have been very poor indeed. It has certainly been the quietest spring since I retired from my full time stressful managerial role at the ripe old age of 57 some 9 years ago which allowed me to become a serious twitcher. Perhaps the past few years in spring and summer were unusually good with a mega role call including Asian Desert Warbler, Whiskered Tern, River Warbler, Red-necked Stint and Little Bustard to name but a few.   So the past few weeks have been mainly about lots of gardening with the occasional bit of local birding. The new fruit garden is in its second year and has matured well. The second year strawberry plants that I propagated from runners from our previous house have cropped very heavily with yummy fresh strawbe