The Standlake Birder

I fancied a day out birding somewhere between Christmas and the new year and with nothing on my twitching radar I decided to try and photograph Water Rails at Slimbridge.   The Water Rail,  Rallus aquaticus , is, surprise surprise, a member of the rail family, a worldwide genus mainly associated with wetlands but they also occupying many other terrestrial low lying habitats. In the UK the Water Rail is a common but highly secretive bird, particularly in the breeding season when it is more often heard than seen. It prefers to sulk deep in the wetland undergrowth rather than come out into the open. It has a very distinctive call often said to resemble a squealing pig. It has some similarities to its common Moorhen cousin but is smaller and slimmer. It is an attractive and charismatic bird with chestnut-brown and black upperparts, a grey face and underparts, black-and-white barred flanks, and a long red bill. To my eyes at least, its facial expression makes it look rather angry and bad te

    With temperatures hitting -9 out in the sticks last week and plenty to do at home I’ve been somewhat less than motivated to go out birding recently. A seemingly very showy rare Isabelline Wheatear down the M5 in Devon did, however, motivate me to get off my backside and go out for a day’s birding on Wednesday.   I’ve seen a few Izzy’s, as birders sometimes call them, in Africa where they overwinter but just one in the UK in Norfolk a few years back. Until comparatively recently they were considered great rarities, the second edition of Collins guide to UK and European birds published in 2009 lists it as a three star mega. But, as the great man said, “the times they are a changing” and it has become more or less an annual vagrant to the UK such that BBRC now lists 52 accepted records. Its habitat is steppe and open countryside and it breeds in southern Russia and central Asia to northern Pakistan wintering in Africa and northwestern India.    The location, Colyford Common nature res

  Myrtle Warbler Is it really 12 months since I posted my review of 2021’s birding?  The years really do seem to go faster as you get older! Anyway, without further ado, here is a review of my 2022 birding year.   2022 was a thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding year with a par for the course annual total of 221 birds and 15 additions to my life list including 2 firsts for Britain. The autumn trip to Shetland was undoubtably the outstanding highlight of the year. The timing weather wise was absolutely spot on with gale force winds producing a seemingly endless stream of wonderful rarities included a remarkable five lifers for me in just ten days. I very much doubt that that will ever happen again!   Bird of the year This is a real tough one with so much to choose from. The two UK firsts, namely the Cape Gull at Grantham on the 7 th   of August and the Least Bittern at Scousbrough   on the 7 th  of October are outstanding candidates but I’m going to go for the Slate-coloured Junco that I s

   This is one of my very occasional bird book review blogs where I look at two recent additions to my library, namely “In search of one last song- Britain’s disappearing birds and the people trying to save them” by  Patrick Galbraith and the recently released 3 rd  addition of the “Collins bird guide” bible by Sevensson,  Mullarney and Zetterstrom.   I’m going to assume that you are familiar with the 2 nd  edition of the Collins bible, my go to book for identifying UK birds. I don’t suppose there are too many UK birders who don’t own a copy. I find the layout of my well-worn second edition to be spot on with excellent plates, descriptions, and range details. It is 13 years since it was published during which much has changed in the UK avian landscape, almost entirely for the worse and pretty much exclusively driven by man’s seemly insatiable greed and appetite to wreck his own  planet.   I opened my Amazon parcel on the day of release of the third edition with great anticipation but,

             Every year small numbers of Waxwings cross the North sea from their Northern European breeding grounds to winter in the UK. They are normally first found in Scotland and northern England before some, if us southerners are very lucky, make their way further south.  Some years, however, irruptions occur when the population on the breeding grounds gets too big for the food available. In these years large numbers overwinter in the UK in what is known as a Waxwing winter. Significant numbers have already arrived this winter in Scotland and northern England hopefully indicating that we are in for a Waxwing winter.   Waxwings favourite winter food is Rowan berries hence they can often be found in rather incongruous settings such as supermarket car parks. For the past few days a small flock has been feasting on Rowans on a small area of scrub land opposite a care home in Sheringham on the east coast. Having stayed localish for the past two weeks I decided to head to Norfolk on Fri