The Standlake Birder -

With only ten accepted UK records to the end of 2022, the Black-faced Bunting is a true three star mega rarity. So when one was found on the Spurn peninsula in Yorkshire a few days back a twitch was a real no-brainer.   Some two weeks ago I had got up in the middle of the night only to dip, along with several hundred other birders, another 3 star mega, a White-throated Needle Tail, at nearby Bampton. So I was not particularly motivated to have another short nights sleep. Instead I decided to leave home at 7 am on the assumption that, if present, the bird would be reported by 8 am. If it had done an overnight bunk I would divert and spend the day birding elsewhere.   As it turned out the gods of birding were with me on this occasion and the Bunting was duly reported as present and correct at 8 am. Its pushing on for a four hour drive from home to Spurn so it was around 11 am when I arrived with the bird still being regularly reported.   The Spurn peninsula is a long narrow...

       All prints framed and unframed  available to buy here https://www.etsy.com/shop/BirdlifeStudio With Monday forecast to be a lovely bright sunny day and autumn migration in full swing, a day out birding definitely seemed to be the order of the day. I was tempted by a showy Lesser Grey Shrike, a bird I have only seen once before in the UK, on the Norfolk coast at a place called Winterton-on Sea. I have been birding at this very pleasant location before and knew that the grassy dunes and adjacent scrubby bushes were a great spot for some autumn birding. Being +3 hours from home, I hatched a plan to break the journey midway with a stop off in Cambridgeshire to see a Lesser Yellowlegs, a rare American vagrant that I have seen a number of times before but never photographed particularly well.    The Yellowlegs was on some still active gravel extraction pits at a small village called Etton near Peterborough. Some internet searching informed me that thi...

        High quality framed and unframed prints available at   https://www.etsy.com/shop/BirdlifeStudio If you don't see what you want please ask! It’s been almost 3 weeks since I’ve done any real birding, a combination of no twitchable rarities I need for my UK list and getting lots of jobs done around the smallholding before my 3 week trip to South America. So this Friday just gone I decided to have a nice day out somewhere. I wanted to avoid an urban or concrete basin setting so decided to head to the peak district where a confiding juvenile Dotterel had been, as they say, “showing well”.   The first previous reports of the bird had been around mid-morning so I decided to set off early and hope the bird had not departed overnight. This was a little risky for a bird that had already been present for a few days but I needn’t have worried as the bird was reported as still present when I was on route.   The location was on some fairly exposed heath moor...

  High quality framed and unframed prints available at   https://www.etsy.com/shop/BirdlifeStudio If you don't see what you want please ask! There are precious few birds that I’ve both seen and photographed well that I will drive 2 hours to see but I will make an exception for my favourite UK bird, the enigmatic Wryneck. No autumn birding in the UK is complete for me unless I have seen at least one of these beauties. So Monday morning found me in the Volvo driving 2 hours to see an exceptionally showy individual located at Exminster Marshes RSPB in Devon.   As it had already been present for a couple of days, I waited for it to be reported before setting off  and so it was near midday when I arrived at the small RSPB car park adjacent to the railway line. It was then a 30 minute or so walk down a pleasant leafy footpath to the welcoming looking Turf hotel. The hotel is next to Turf lock from where stunning views can be had over the river Exe estuary towards Exto...

         Distant record shot of Marsh Sandpiper Prior to moving to our smallholding under the Malvern Hills some 5 years ago I spent many a happy hour in the Langley Lane bird hide at Pit 60 near Standlake. So when a rare Marsh Sandpiper was identified there on Friday morning from a photo taken the previous day I immediately started thinking about a visit.   We were looking after our two eldest grandchildren while their parents were at work over the weekend and I had already promised a Friday morning visit to Dirty Donuts, their favourite café, in Malvern. Now there was no way I was going to let the boys down, doubly so because the donuts baked and filled on site are absolutely to die for!   My Oxon birding pal, Nick , was working that morning but was planning to go with his wife Anne that afternoon so I arranged to meet them in the hide. They were already there when I arrived around 2:30 pm and Nick showed me the Sandpiper through his scope located di...

  BLOG UPDATE _22nd August 2025 Quote from Rare bird alert article   "An extraordinary ornithological milestone has been confirmed at Walberswick in Suffolk, where Zitting Cisticola Cisticola juncidis has bred for the first time in Britain. An adult was first reported at the site on 3 August, representing the first record for Suffolk. Just two weeks later, on 17 August, observers recorded two birds, with one male in full song - an early sign that breeding might be on the cards. Today, the discovery of a family party of five birds - two adults accompanied by three juveniles - has confirmed that this southern European and Asian warbler has nested successfully. The news marks the species’ first proven breeding on the British mainland and a major landmark in the ever-changing avifauna of these islands."   The photo above was taken by my mate Nick  in Lesvos earlier this spring   The Zitting Cisticola, alternatively called Fan-tailed Warbler, is a comparatively...

          This year so far birding has often seemed like trying to get blood out of a stone. Twitchable rarities have been few and far between and even scarce birds have been, well, scarce on the ground. This has made the usual summer birding doldrums seem even duller than usual.   So a juvenile rare Black Stork in Suffolk hence seemed worthy of a visit, and by this I mean a seven hour return journey drive. I’m either desperate or completely bonkers – my ever suffering wife certainly thinks the latter! I’ve only ever seen one in the UK, a brief flyover a few years back at Frampton RSPB so the chance to hopefully photograph this, by all accounts, obliging teenager was very tempting.   White Storks in the UK are troublesome  birds. They went extinct as a breeding species in Britain in 1416 when  the last recorded breeding pair nested on the roof of St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. A significant number of recently reintroduced, an...

     Grimley Night Herron curtsey of Adrain Sparrowhawk For the past week or so a second calendar year Night Heron has taken up residence on the old gravel pits at Grimley just north of Worcester. I’ve seen a few in the UK over the years and so it wasn’t a drop everything and go moment but none the less these are rather spectacular herons and so I have made two visits to Grimley over the past week.   I should really say Black-crowned Night Heron as there are a number of species of Night Heron including the somewhat similar but much rarer Yellow-Crowned Night Heron. The latter has not been recorded in the UK but there was a long standing and much admired one last year in Southern Ireland.   The adult Black-Crowned night Heron is short-necked, short-legged, and stout with a primarily brown or grey plumage with, yes you guessed it, a black crown. Their eyes are a piercing red.  Two or three long white plumes, erected in greeting and courtship displays, ex...

We are well into the time of year that some birders call the summer doldrums, meaning that birding tends to be rather slow in the summer post breeding season. So I had a very pleasant and laid back day at Slimbridge this week.   I made use of the 08:15 early entry for members and made my way down to the summer walkway in an attempt to see the returning White Spotted  Bluethroat.  I narrowly missed seeing the post breeding family of elusive Bearded Tits which had been seen by the volunteers at the Shepard’s Hut before I arrived. It is assumed that they bred in the reed beds next to the river Severn. After an hour or so the Bluethroat put in a brief somewhat distant appearance on one of its favourite twigs.  In all honestly, it was looking a little tatty in moult. Remarkably, this is the 5 th  year that it has returned to exactly the same spot and I’ve managed to see it every year. Bluethroats breed in central and eastern Europe  through t...