The Standlake Birder

   Jay On Wednesday I made the short trip to try and see a Richard’s Pipit at Awre in Gloucester. I’ve seen a couple of Richard’s Pipits over the years but was tempted to have a go for this one as it was only 20 or so miles from home. Awre is also very close to the Forest of Dean so I planned a morning at Awre followed by an afternoon in the forest.   If truth be told, Richard’s Pipit is not the most colourful or exciting bird in the world being very much the archetypal “little brown Jobby”, a description which also covers most other Pipits. It is a scarce rather than rare vagrant to the UK with a small number recorded in a typical year. It breeds in open grasslands in the East Palearctic  and  is a long-distance migrant  moving to winter in the open lowlands of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.    It was a long muddy slog down from Awre to the fortified riverbank of the Severn where the bird had been regularly reported in...

     Finally, it feels as though we may have turned the page on this everlasting winter. As I write this the sun has finally appeared and is shining brightly over our small holding. The salad tomatoes and pepper seedlings  have almost forgiven me for planting them in the gloom of winter and are starting to grow. The hanging basket annuals, petunias, bidens and lobelias, are out of the heated propagator and looking promising in the sunny greenhouse.   I’ve been toying with the idea of a visit to RSPB Greylake in Somerset to see and hopefully photograph a showy overwintering female Merlin. With the sun starting to warm the countryside and metrological spring starting on Saturday, she will soon be heading to her northern breeding grounds. So it was now or never and with some sun promised I made my way to Greylake a couple of days ago.   Greylake this time of year is absolutely teaming with winter wildfowl, mainly Widgeon and Teal with a smattering of Shov...

        I really struggle with these dark overcast winter days. Sometimes  it even  feels as though it never really gets light at all but heigh-ho spring is just around the corner apparently! With gloom forecast and delivered for this whole week so far, I was determined to get out somewhere for a days birding to cheer myself up. I had a look at various options but in the end decided on the New Forest for the morning and then Southsea for the afternoon as I fancied something a  little different and I haven’t been to the New Forest for a good few years. I had two New Forest specialties that I was particularly hoping to see, namely the Firecrest and Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. There have been a few reports of the Woodpeckers drumming from a particular tree at Acres Down but I was unsure of the exact location. So I asked my birding friend, Ady, who has been there and he kindly supplied detailed directions to the foresaid tree. My plan was to ...

     Glossy Ibis Our garden Greater Spotted Woodpecker has started drumming again on his favourite tree, a sure sign that spring is not a million miles away.  He does this as breeding season approaches to proclaim ownership of his territory and warn off any rivals. With this in mind, and a bright cold sunny morning forecast for Wednesday, I set off for the Wyre Forest in Worcestershire to see if I could locate any of my garden drummers much rarer cousins, the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. I arrived  in the forest just before dawn on a beautiful morning faithful to the weather forecast, perfect conditions for a bid of territory advertising.    I was further encouraged by a  Greater Spotted Woodpecker drumming loudly near the car park. I made my way to a spot that has been good in the past where dead partially rotten trees had been favourite drumming spots.  The drumming on old rotten trees is said to carry further. My experien...

     Booted Eagle A mega rare juvenile Booted Eagle from southern Europe has been fairly settled for the last ten days or so near Crowlas at the far end of Cornwall. Regular readers of my blog will know that I have already dipped this bird once, see here . Again, regular readers will know that I’m not that easily defeated and so I made a second attempt this week. I drove down on Tuesday evening and stayed in the cheapest overnight accommodation I could find, a Travel Lodge in Redruth. I was hence on site and staking out the eagle before dawn on Wednesday.    It was thought to be roosting in a small clump of pines just outside of Crowlas which can be viewed from two different locations. A layby on the A30 where I dipped the eagle the previous week, offers the best all round unobstructed views. The other viewing point is a railway bridge on the A394. The latter offers much closer views of the pines but the wider view is much more restricted. The railway bridge is ...

      I received the above as a requested Christmas present from my lovely other half and was so impressed by the books that I thought I should write a brief review.   If you don’t want to read any further here is the takeaway message from this review. This is the new go to ID reference work for the serious birder.   In fact I would go as far as to say that if you’ve got a decent view and/or photos of the bird in question and can’t id with this superb reference work you ain’t  going to. It’s probably, however, not a book for the casual birder who wants to know what the bird at the garden feeders is. There are plenty of other less detailed books eminently suitable for this purpose, for example the excellent RSPB guides   The two volumes separately deal with passerines and non-passerines. In general the quality of the book is absolutely superb, both in terms of the quality of material used to manufacture the book and the wonderful plates of the vari...

     Very dodgy record shot of the Lesser Sandpiper - heavy processed due to mist!   A Least Sandpiper has been present more or less continuously at Steart Marshes since the 2 nd  of January. It was not a drop all and twitch moment as I’ve seen one quite well before with Jeremy back in 2017 at Lodmoor RSPB in Weymouth. The attractive and showy Yellow-browed Warbler and the life tick of the N orthumberland White-billed Diver   have been the traveling focus of my intentions so far in January. Fast forward to this Thursday with a day out somewhere planned and the added attraction of Steart Marshes being a new reserve for me, I left home at the comfortable time of 07:15 and headed down the M5 towards Somerset.    It was very foggy at home, which was a little disconcerting, but this came and went along the M5 with intervals of pale winter sun. It was still pretty misty and cold when I arrived at Steart but as I parked a male Stonechat sat up right in ...

         Northumberland has been on fire recently for rare birds. At some point in the past week or so White-billed Diver, American Pipit, Ross’s Gull, and Grey-headed Lapwing have all been present. While the Diver is not the rarest of the four, that award would surely go to the Lapwing, it’s the one that piqued my interest the most as there is a great big hole in my UK list where it should sit. In contrast, I have previously seen and photographed the other three quite well.    There are five living members of the order Gaviiformes, (Divers, or Loons if you are American)  worldwide. These being the foresaid White-billed Diver, Great Northern Diver, Pacific Diver, Black throated and Red Throated Divers. I have seen the other four in the UK, in some cases many times, so a twitch to see the White-throated would give me the complete set of Gaviiformes.   One of my best birding experiences occurred when watching a  pair of courting ...