The Standlake Birder -

Pied Wheatear I hit state pension age on Wednesday and decided to celebrate with a birders style lie in, i.e. up at 04:30 to drive for 4 hours to see a Pied Wheatear near Sunderland!  The early morning drive was uneventful punctuated only by a couple of short break and coffee stops.  RBA came on-line at 07:00 but there were no reports of the bird. I was not too alarmed by this as it had been there for a week  and I figured  that most people who wanted to see it probably had.   The adult male Pied Wheatear is a spectacular looking black and white bird but almost all UK vagrants are first winter birds, presumably indicating that inexperienced migrators are much more likely to get lost.  It has a wide breeding range from Southeast Europe through to Western Asia. In the spring and summer it is found eastwards from Romania and Bulgaria right across to Afghanistan.  In the autumn in migrates to  Northeast Africa for the winter....

Red-flanked Bluetail My birding friend Nick has started to call me lucky Jim based on the run of birding good fortune I’ve had in recent months. Well it had to end sometime didn’t it?   A week ago on Friday  a mega rare Taiga Flycatcher was found at Flamborough in Yorkshire in an area called South Landing. It seems highly likely that this was one and the same bird as a one day wonder a short distance away at Flamborough head in October. There was the added attraction of a Red-flanked Bluetail, an attractive small passerine, also at South Landing.   The weekend was taken up with looking after grandchildren and other family stuff so the first day I could twitch the Flycatcher was Monday. On Sunday night I looked at the overnight forecast for Flamborough with some trepidation, clear sky and light southerly winds, ideal for the flycatcher to continue its migration!  I’d also seen video taken of it on Sunday showing it preening profusely, often a sign that it wa...

   Shore Lark   If truth be told, it’s been a funny old autumn for birding. While there have been a few absolutely stonking megas, what my friend Jeremy calls the supporting cast, i.e. good scarce birds, have been by and large absent.     Nonetheless I wanted to do a day out somewhere this week and so decided to drive over to Norfolk for the day on Wednesday for two particular target species. Firstly, a small flock of Shore Larks occupying their fairly reliable  late autumn and winter home at Hockham gap. Secondly a Short-toed Lark  in a field some 20 miles further down the coast at West Runcorn.   I left home just after 05:30 and commenced the drive eastwards to Norfolk which normally takes about three and a half hours. Leaving early normally gets me around the M42 before it turns into a car park around Birmingham. All was going to plan as I got to Peterborough and I stopped for a coffee and to pick up a roll for lunch. After Peterborou...

  If its avian bling that you are after you would be hard pressed to beat a Hoopoe, a scarce passage migrant to the UK.   In preparation for its passage to Africa, a very showy individual of said bird has been fattening itself up on grubs for the past few days on a Warwick  industrial estate just 40 minutes from home. I’ve seen a number of Hoopoes, both in the UK and in their winter home of Africa, but have never got a decent photo. I hence found myself sitting on the grass by the reception of IBM late morning today with a handful of other birders and photographers watching this exotic visitor.   Hoopoes are fairly common and widespread across Europe, Asia, and Africa but only occur as a scare spring and autumn passage vagrant to the UK. In a good year perhaps 50 birds  are seen in the UK. There are three recognised species, the Eurasian Hoopoe which spends the warmer months in Europe before migrating to Africa for the winter and the resident African a...

Red-backed Shrike On Thursday morning, after the traditional hearty breakfast, we set off towards Loch Spiggie where a putative Eastern Yellow Wagtail had been found at the adjacent Noss farm. The Eastern Yellow Wagtail, as the name suggests, breeds in eastern Siberia and Alaska and winters in Asia and Australia. The phylogeny of the Yellow Wagtail group is complex and, quite honestly, extremely confusing, literally dozens of sub species have been described at one time or another. In the past Western and Eastern Yellow Wagtails have been lumped together as one species but they have been recently split into two distinctive species. I would, however, not be at all surprised though if they are reunited at some future point! The Eastern Yellow Wagtail has a slender and long-tailed appearance and, in general, a bright yellow breast, paler throat and a greyish-olive back. The tail is black with white outer feathers and it often pumps it    up and down while walking on the ground. Th...