The Standlake Birder

        I had been meaning to visit a well know spot in Wales to see a Black Grouse Lek which I’ve never seen. My good birding buddy, Nick ,  has visited recently and posted some great photos. I hence thought it was time that I got my finger out and went to see this rather unique avian experience.   Armed with the usually excellent info from Nick  , I booked myself into a local Travellodge on Tuesday night and drove up onto the moor in the dark to recky the location. I had chosen a day forecast to be sunny with an overnight frost which, hopefully, would provide excellent conditions for photography. The only danger was whether there would be an early morning mist over the moor. The lek starts before dawn and continues for an hour or so after so an early start is essential.   There is one very extremely important piece of information to know if you plan to visit a Black Grouse lek, it’s absolutely forbidden to get out of the car and disturb the lek....

    Wood Lark Some two weeks ago I attempted to twitch an American Black Scoter in Cheshire, the only UK listed Scoter which I have not seen. It was associating with a large flock of Common Scoters off the coast at Holylake. The beach here is very flat meaning that it was a good 40 minute walk out across the soft sand at low tide to the water. The tide also comes in quickly so an awareness of the tide times for personal safety is essential. To cut a long story short, the massive Scoter flock was very distant with perhaps only 5% of them close enough to be able to differentiate the Common Scoter from the similar Black Scoter with my scope. After a very frustrating morning with no one present managing to definitively get on the rare bird, I left to get some lunch and do some birding elsewhere.    About 40 minutes after I left the Black Scoter was reported on RBA – Bl**dy hell!!!   So I made my way back to Holylake and once again trudged across the sand. With the t...

   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...