Middleton Lakes: Little Egret roost count breaks record

Little Egrets bred successfully at Middleton Lakes RSPB nature reserve this year - the first confirmed breeding record, fledging three young.  They nest among Grey Herons in woodland next to the visitor's car park.  In recent winters the local population of Little Egrets has formed a communal roost, with small parties of up to four birds trickling into the trees at dusk (over a period of about 30 mins).  It is fun to watch and count to birds coming into roost.  Yesterday evening, after a walk around the reserve, Colin, Steve and I gave ourselves the challenge of counting the roosting birds to see if we could match or possibly exceed the recent record counts of up to 54 birds. Starting just before 4pm, two birds were already in the trees, and soon a few more started to fly in, coming from all directions.  Soon we were into the twenties, then a bit of a lull, before a final rush, and we quickly got to fifty, then fifty two, and finally a party of four took us over the record and up to 56.  This evening the count was matched and it seems likely to be exceeded again soon.

Little Egret, Rutland Water January 2016

Great to see this lovely bird doing so well, taking advantage of the newly created wetland habitats in the Tame Valley and becoming a regular feature of a day's birding.  Great White Egrets are set to follow this trend, with up to four recently in the area, tending to favour Alvecote Pools.

Little Egrets are much scarcer in Banburyshire, the best site is Bicester Wetland BOS nature reserve where there are often one or two, but on Boxing Day we saw two at the top end of Boddington Reservoir, and they can turn up anywhere there is wetland habitat.

The reason we were birding at Middleton Lakes was partly because it made a convenient stop on our way homewards after visiting Beeley in Derbyshire to see the Dusky Thrush that has been a star bird for the past month.  We got really nice prolonged views of the thrush feeding on earthworms in a pasture field on the edge of this very pretty village.  It was too distant to get worthwhile photos, so I've dug out an image of a very smart looking Dusky Thrush I photographed in Kyoto last year, to mark the occasion.

Dusky Thrush, Kyoto, November 2015

Chacombe: Tricky gull ID challenge

Boxing Day update!  I've had some very helpful feedback on the identification of the gulls in the youtube clips below, indicating they are Herring Gulls not Caspian Gulls.  So I've edited this entry, reflecting I'm still on a learning curve with this species, and need to see some more!!


Thanks to the excellent work of John and Gareth yesterday - John first tracking down a 1st Year Caspian Gull at Chacombe, then Gareth finding a 2nd Year Caspian Gull at Grimsbury Reservoir in the roost at dusk - I made a further effort to find the species this morning in the Chacombe area.  I have spent quite a bit of time looking for them this autumn, without any luck, so I was not overly optimistic.  So it was a pleasant surprise to find two potential Caspian Gulls in the same cattle field, albeit at opposite ends.

I quickly grabbed some phone-scope footage before the inevitable happened and they flew off! This is quite a tricky site to watch, the birds are a bit flighty and view points very limited.  I am still learning a lot about gull ID especially Caspian, so it was great to be able to compare with the footage with that from yesterday.  The footage seemed to indicate that these were the same birds, but observers with more experience have spotted that they lack key features for Caspian, and are actually different birds to those seen yesterday.  This is a bit disapponting (and embarassing), but also shows the value of grabbing images or video to enable greater scrutiny of birds like these.  Hopefully it won't be too long before I can get some better views and a definitive sighting on the local patch!

There are exceptional numbers of "large" gulls in this area at the moment, I estimated about 2000 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, 100 Herring Gulls and three Yellow-legged Gulls.

part of the A361 gull flock near Chacombe, Northants

Finally, for gull fans, some footage of the albino Herring Gull at Grimsbury Reservoir a couple of weeks ago.

Inverness: Aigas reunion

A few images from last weekend, when I joined up with friends to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of our year spent together working as field guides at Aigas Field Centre, near Beauly, Inverness-shire.
On Saturday afternoon we ventured up Glen Stathfarrar, the valley was filled with huge flocks of Fieldfare, feeding voraciously on berry-laden Rowan trees and worm-rich pastures.  The flocks seemed to be everywhere, even high up above the mountains: thousands and thousands.  A single Golden Eagle patrolled overhead, also, earlier on, a Red Kite - a bird we would certainly not have expected to see thirty years ago.

Red Deer stag

Glen Strathfarrar

Glen Strathfarrar

Huge flocks of Fieldfares with a few Redwings mixed in

That evening we had a great view of a Pine Marten attracted to peanuts next to our lodge  - they are now commonly seen here, but were still something of a rarity back in 1986.  On Sunday we stayed close to Aigas, wandering around the grounds including the idyllic small loch.  Fungi were much in evidence, nothing unusual but nice to see, especially the beautiful Fly Agaric.

Aigas Loch in the mist on Sunday morning

Aigas Loch

Shaggy Inkcap (Lawyer's Wig) toadstools

Shaggy Inkcap toadstools deliquescing

Fly Agaric toadstool

Thanks to John and Lucy Lister-Kaye for hosting us, and continuing to offer a great experience of Highland nature for the many visitors to Aigas.

Culworth: Dark Mullein and autumn colours.. and accentors

Definitely feels like a changing of the guard this weekend - with pretty much all of our summer migrants departed and  a few more of our winter visitors arriving, albeit in fairly small numbers.  On Saturday I drove though the Northamptonshire countryside between Wardington and Daventry, stopping in likely spots to see what was about.  Much of this landscape is arable farmland, most of which is currently bare ground following autumn harvest and before the emergence of the winter sown crops.  Gulls and corvids in particular are attracted to these fields, especially during cultivation or muck-spreading.  Lesser Blacked-backed Gulls tend to dominate, often with large flocks of Black-headed Gulls, however one area of farmland had attracted about 200 Common Gulls, by far the highest number I've seen so far this autumn, and a sure sign birds are moving in from the north and east.  While I was watching the gulls, three Fieldfares flew over, my first of the autumn - soon there will be hundreds in the area.  Another patch of farmland, just east of Chacombe, has attracted a flock of over 100 lapwings, actually quite a notable count for our area!  Two Golden Plover were also present with them, plus a few Skylarks, Meadow Pipits and Stock Doves.

Out for a run in the afternoon, Mark spotted a large plant with yellow flowers growing next to a footpath through rough grassland just east of Culworth.  It was clearly a species of mullein, so I returned on Sunday afternoon to take some photos - it turned out to be Dark Mullein.

Dark Mullein

 

I don't recall seeing it anywhere else locally, maybe I've missed it but I doubt there is too much suitable habitat for it either.  Red Kites were also on the wing in this area, patrolling above a pretty valley between Culworth and Eydon that is hidden from the road.  A Redwing flew over, and I stopped for a while to photograph the autumn colours.

Valley at Culworth, Northants

English Oak

Hawthorn

Back-tracking to Friday, an hour spent watching the gull roost at Grimsbury Reservoir was rewarded with further views of two Yellow-legged Gulls, one adult and one two year old bird.  I managed to photograph the adult in good light with both my SLR camera and the iphone/telescope combination.

Adult Yellow-legged Gull (phone-scoped)

Adult Yellow-legged Gull Canon SLR with 400mm lens

The beautiful Siberian Accentor hit the birding headlines this week, with the arrival of at least three in Britain (the first ever recorded).  This prompted me took look back at photos I took of Rufous-breasted  Accentor during a trek though the Sikkim Himalaya in 2010.  Their breeding habitat in Sikkim was juniper scrub at around 3500m, in this specific habitat they were quite common, but somewhat shy.  I didn't have such a good telephoto lens then either!  Interestingly, Alpine Accentors were migrating up towards their breeding habitat in the mountains, we encountered a small flock at over 4000m.  Of course we do have a resident accentor in the UK - the hedge sparrow.

Rufous-breasted Accentor, Sikkim, 10 April 2010

Rufous-breasted Accentor habitat

Migrant Alpine Accentor, Sikkim

Hedge Accentor..or Dunnock, Grimsbury Reservoir 2014