Drake Garganey at an unusual location

I decided to check Helston boating lake this morning and was surprised to find a drake Garganey.  In fact, it found me as I saw it drop in.  It was initially very wary and skittish as it dodged the radio-controlled model boats.  It flew round the lake a couple times but eventually settled near one of the islands. 

This is one of the most obliging Garganey's I've ever seen.  They are normally skulking and shy, rarely giving themselves up for long, let alone be photographed.  Hence why my mate Johnny Chapple arrived inside twenty minutes from Truro.  He's never filmed one in HD!

This charmimg dabbling duck does not breed in Cornwall but is a scarce passage migrant.  The species is normally found in Spring at well vegetated places like Marazion Marsh, the Camel Estuary (Walmsley) and sometimes at Church Cove Gunwalloe. A boating lake is not where you expect to see them!  Garganey is highly migratory with the European population wintering in Africa.  The species is a rare breeder in the UK with occasional breeding in Norfolk.  A small breeding population can also be found in southern Ireland, which is perhaps where this male is destined.

The light conditions today were appalling - overcast, grey, dull and misty with rain later.  I was a bit disappointed really as I was hoping for better light.  I'm trying out the new Nikon D7100 camera, which for the techies, doesn't have an optical low pass filter.  This should mean slightly sharper images. The photo's below have been given the hair dryer treatment but given the poor light,  I think you can see the 24 meg sensor's benefits:

   

Spotted Sandpiper on the Camel Estuary

Continuing with the American theme this Spring, a superb adult Spotted Sandpiper was found yesterday near the A39 concrete bridge which spans the estuary.  This species follows Pectoral Sandpiper, American Golden Plover and Lesser Yellowlegs this Spring in Cornwall.  The Spotted Sandpiper was always distant at about sixty metres on the opposite side of the estuary, but it showed well at mid morning with four Common Sandpipers.  It can be picked out fairly easily as it is so much paler than the Common Sands.  And of course it sports some dark spotting on the underparts and mottling on the coverts.

Taken with Nikon D7100, 600mm F4, tripod mounted. Ap F4, Exp 0.3, WB Cloudy. Cropped by c.33%.

Special guest appearance - Tom Gale, 14

TOM'S BIRD and WILDLIFE DIARIES, age 14.

Tom Gale is the son of a John Gale, a friend of mine and well known Devon birder and wildlife artist.  I first met Tom when we both found a Bee Eater at Porthcurno a couple years ago - he was at one end of the road and I was at the other.  I chanced upon his excellent photo of a Bluethroat at Portland.  This prompted me to take a look at his other work.  It is quite simply superb and well worth publishing to a wider audience.  A short bio in Tom's own words are relayed below. The link to his web page is here > TOM GALE Not only is the photography superb but his bird art is excellent as well.  Please take a look at his work.

I have been writing my bird watching diary ever since I was 7 and record all the birds and wildlife that I see in it. I also draw and paint pictures of the highlights of each trip.   I try to write up what I have seen every time we go out so I don't forget it. I really enjoy bird watching and have now found quite a few scarce birds, including Yellow-browed warbler, Red-breasted flycatcher and a Glossy Ibis.     We have had some really good days and some rather unlucky ones, but that's what makes it fun. You can never tell what you will see! My most exciting moment was when we found a Bee-eater in Cornwall.   I have seen 369 species of bird in Britain.The last new bird I saw was a Whiskered Tern on the23rd of April at Durleigh reservoir in Somerset.   My favourite places I go birding are the Land’s End area in Cornwall, The Isles of Scilly, Portland, and Ham Wall reserve in Somerset. I also go to Wales to visit my grandmother and enjoy looking for birds and wildlife there as well. I find painting birds great fun and really enjoy it. My father is a bird artist and I learn a lot from him.   I find seawatching very exciting and in the late summer and early autumn we go to Land’s End and seawatch from Porthgwarra or Pendeen. In August 2011 I saw a Great Shearwater for the first time from Porthgwarra. I was thrilled as I had been hoping to see one of these birds for several years. Later on in the day, after leaving the site, we were told that there had been another 30 birds seen.   We rushed back to Porthgwarra and were amazed as over the next 2 and a half hours, we saw over 1000 Great Shearwaters.   I live in Haldon forest in Devon and Firecrest is one of my favourite birds.     An example of Tom's diary is shown below plus one of his favourite images of Capercaillie.

Another very quiet weekend

Cornwall has been strangely quiet this weekend with the highlights being not what you would expect in Cornwall in Spring.   A distinctly American flavour in Lesser Yellowlegs at Marazion (only the second record for that site) and a Pectoral Sandpiper at Colliford were the only real highlights.

I went to Gwithian today and spent a fair amount of the morning there.  I was hoping for maybe a shrike but had to make do with a nice male Sedge Warbler singing from the scrub.  There were a few Whitethroats singing too.  17 Whimbrel were flying around the area and settled behind the bullock field.  Some of the males were singing and calling.  I also heard Whimbrel singing at Land's End on Friday.  In the next few days they will be on Orkney or further north breeding. 

The images below were taken this weekend. (Nikon D7000 and 600mm F4).

Male Sedge Warbler in song at Gwithian

Male Sedge Warbler defending territory

Male Whitethroat at Trinity Pool, Land's End

Whimbrel at Land's End in early morning dew

Adult Dunlin at Marazion Beach

Turnstone at Marazion Beach. Some new scapular feathers are emerging.

Waders at Marazion today

In addition to the adult Lesser Yellowlegs on the marsh, several species of wader are showing well on the beach.  Main species included Ringed Plover, Dunlin and Turnstone but a single Bar-tailed Godwit, four Whimbrel and a couple Sanderling added to the show.  Some images from today are shown below:

Adult Lesser Yellowlegs

Turnstone

Adult Dunlin

Adult Dunlin

Adult Sanderling

Adult Lesser Yellowlegs at Marazion Marsh

An adult Lesser Yellowlegs was found at lunchtime today on the main RSPB reserve.  It was feeding at the side of the reeds and easily seen from the main road.  I watched it until 7pm tonight where it seemed to roost in the stubble reedbed to the east of the reserve.  Whilst autumn birds are annual in Cornwall, records in Spring are decidedly rare.  From memory, there have only been two or three Spring records and these come from the Camel Estuary.

 

All images taken with a Nikon D7000 body and 600mm F4 lens. Ap F4- F8, ISO 160. EXP -0.3 WB Cloudy.

Woodchat Shrike at Kelynack, Cot Valley

The second Woodchat of the season was found yesterday in the donkey field on the road between Kelynack and the Youth Hostel at Cot Valley. The bird seen at Kenidjack last week was clearly different to the one seen today; based on the amount of white on the lores and forehead, this bird is presumably a female.  The amount of grey in the mantle also suggests a first summer bird.  The bird was always quite distant favouring the gorse bushes at the bottom of the valley.

For the keen eyed observers, the images are not quite as sharp as they normally appear on this blog.  The reason is that they were taken with an old second hand Nikon D2H camera boasting a "massive" 4.1 mega pixel sensor!  It can still churn out 8 frames per second though. This model was launched way back in 2003 but can still just about hold its own among the latest crop of 36 mega pixel cameras.

Birding on Boa Vista, Cape Verde - part 3 - seabirds

This post is my final post on a birding trip to Boa Vista, Cape Verde in March.  This post concentrates on seabirds, which was my main area of interest on this trip.  The archipelago in general is extensive and to get to all parts in a two week period is difficult, so I had to give the north-west part a miss.  This was a bit of a shame as the largest seabird concentrations are in this corner.  That said, I managed to get out on a whale watching trip(65 Euros) and also as an observer on a deep sea fishing safari (60 Euros) to catch Wahoo and Tuna.  The latter trip lasted six hours and travelled 20 miles out - perfect.

The highlight was two White-faced Storm Petrels.  This charismatic species breeds fairly close nearby on an islet called Ilheu dos Passaros in the north east of Boa Vista.  However they only arrive on the islet at nighttime and are difficult to see in the day.  As you can imagine I was delighted to see this bird but disappointed that no photo's were taken.  I also saw several Cape Verde Petrel and two Red-billed Tropicbirds.

The commonest species was Brown Booby and they can be seen at close quarters along the surf of the beach as they dive at a low angle to catch fish, hence several photos are shown below.  The species breeds on the small offshore island of Currel Velho, about two kms east of the hotel.  There are about 100 pairs breeding here.  It was here that I saw what I originally thought was a Masked Booby though I am now pretty sure this is a young Brown Booby.  Comments are welcome on this.

In  addition to the common Brown Booby's, I also saw in total about ten Red-billed Tropicbird and a female Magnificent Frigatebird patrolling over Currel Velho.  The male was apparently sitting on the nest.  This pair is now the only two resident birds in the Western Palearctic.  Two females have not definitly been seen together for a many months (per Pedro, local birder) so it seems this pair will soon become extinct here.

About a km off the hotel beach, I was also very lucky to see a mother Humpback Whale and calf leaping out of the sea.  The image below is not the best but it does show the adult jumping and the splash to the left is the other one already going under.

Female Magnificent Frigatebird, with juv Brown Booby (sixth from left) and adult Brown Booby's

Presumed juv Brown Booby (centre)

Pair of adult Brown Booby

Adult Brown Booby at dusk

Pair of juv Brown Booby - the line is tangled fishing gut caught round its leg.



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Birds in Cornwall - March round-up

With the extremely cold weather averaging just 2.2 degrees in March, there was much dispondency about the birding scene in Cornwall.  Indeed, March 2013 was officially pronounced by the BBC as the coldest since 1962. That said, there has been some stunningly bright and clear days, ideal for mopping up those not-so-rare birds in the county.  As it happens, there has been a lot to see.  Three species in particular stand out for me.  Common Scoter, Red-necked Grebe and Lapland Bunting are normally really difficult to see well, let alone photo.  And they have offered themselves on a plate!

On the extreme rarity front, the regular, returning Pacific Diver has been pretty tricky to see in Mount's Bay, often seen to the east of the Mount.  The drake Lesser Scaup is presumably also a returning bird, popping up regularly at Colliford and more recently at Siblyback Res. I saw the drake Ring-necked Duck last Sunday at Par beach pool, neck-stretching regularly and showing its purple namesake.  Continuing with the waterbird theme, drake Goosanders have been very photogenic at St Andrew's Pool and also last week one at Hayle.  Black-throated Divers are now approaching summer plumage and can be seen in numbers in Gerrans Bay, sometimes quite close.  A decent raft of 50 or so Common Scoter could be seen at Porthpean and if lucky, a Velvet Scoter as well.

On the wader front, several Little Ringed Plovers were seen at the end of the month, with an obliging pair frequenting the scrape pool at St Gothians.  Others have been seen at Treraven Meadows.  A Black-tailed Godwit at Marazion was showing characteristics of the limosa race and mirrors the record of one at the same place and same date last year.

The normal early passerines battled the extreme wind and cold only to find little food here.  A large fall of Chiffchaffs were resorting to feeding on grass verges and gardens - but how many perished?  A Hoopoe was found moribund at St Agnes.  There were good numbers of Sand Martins at the normal venues and Northern Wheatears tried to make it feel something like Spring.

So all in all, despite the bitter conditions, there were a few good birds to be seen.  Some images I took are shown below:

Drake Common Scoter at Swanpool was very confiding

Common Scoter - image taken pointing into the sun's glare EV +1.0

Red-necked Grebe at Siblyback Reservoir



Drake Goosander at St Andrew's, a popular site for this species

Little Ringed Plover at St Gothian Sands NR - greater numbers than normal arrived in the South West in March



Pair of Little Ringed Plovers at St Gothian Sands

Black-tailed Godwit at Marazion Marsh

Drake Northern Pintail at St Gothian Sands NR at the end of March

Male Lapland Bunting approaching summer plumage - up to 100 birds were counted at Rosenannon Downs near Wadebridge.

Male Northern Wheatear at Marazion Marsh.