Banbury: Waxwings

A quick lunchtime trip up to Longelandes Way in Banbury was rewarded by some nice views of eleven Waxwings (13 were seen in the same area yesterday) trilling away in an ornamental tree half way down Portway.  They briefly descended onto a much smaller ornamental rowan.  I managed a few quick pics before they flew off.  There are quite a few berry-bearing trees and shrubs in the area, so hopefully they will stick around for a few days.

Queensland 2016 No.1 : Atherton Tablelands

The first instalment of "highlights" from a tour around the Cairns area last August.  My nephew's wedding in Noosa, north of Brisbane, presented the ideal opportunity to spend some time exploring north Queensland, and area I'd not visited on two previous visits to Australia.

With a week available, the itinerary was honed-down to three areas: Yungaburra and Mount Molloy in the Atherton Tablelands (inland from Cairns), and the Daintree area north of Cairns.  I also had three specific targets - Platypus, Southern Cassowary and Victoria's Riflebird (a bird-of-paradise).

Rather than write in detail about where to go and stay, I hope the images will give a flavour of what you can see in a week or so in this excellent area.  Top of my list of "wildlife to see" was definitely the Platypus. I was blown away by the wonderful views I had to two individuals right up close at Peterson Creek, a well known Platypus-spotting reserve of the outskirts of Yungaburra.  Their presence was first given away by a trail of bubbles breaking the surface..... then that amazing face appeared! They couldn't have been more confiding.

Platypus in the creek

Getting closer

now almost too close for my 400mm lens

This all happened just hours after Mark and I had touched down at Cairns Airport, picked up a hire car and driven up the long, winding road to the Atherton Tablelands.  After checking into a motel and grabbing some lunch, I thought I might as well check out the reserve as it was just a few hundred metres along the road, and was very pleasantly surprised to find the Platypus almost immediately (they are more active at dawn and dusk). 

The Atherton Tablelands sit at about 1000m elevation, and much of what was once extensive rainforest has made way for farmed countryside with cattle and crops, but the rolling landscape still dotted with patches of surviving rainforest and surrounded by relatively unspoilt forest-clad mountains.  There is a rich variety of wildlife here, including several endemic birds and marsupials, and some impressive trees, volcanic cater lakes and wetlands.

Saw-shelled Turtle, Peterson Creek

Spectacled Monarch - commonly encountered in the rainforest

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.