Sunday 4 December - Bright Winter sunshine

As Winter weather goes, I couldn't be better than cold nights with bright sunshine a least for some of the reduced daylight hours. Slayed by virus for the last 10 days have left little energy outside working, The Sheep returned from their few weeks sabbatical, now waiting to see if they are in lamb next spring.

After the big surprise of a Kingfisher visiting the new pond last month, I put a stick / perch in the ground overhanging the water, just in case I ever visited again. This morning the Kingfisher returned, again it was brief, but it did use the stick !. Last weekend a female Blackcap was using the feeders, which is unusual to see one here beyond Summer. A small number of Redwings are still in the gully and a Goldfinch flock of around 25 birds with a smaller number of Siskin. Otherwise pretty quiet.

The stick over he pond can be seen with the Kingfisher on top

A female bird due to the red base to the lower mandible

Still incredible to think a Kingfisher was ever going to be a garden visitor.

Grey Wagtail

Sunday 13 November - Leaf collecting

Saturday was Wet, very cold and windy - I did a 6km Commando assault course at Hever Castle in Kent with Adie, a school friend and her Dad - It was freezing and very wet but ultimately good fun as I survived !

Sunday I was mainly recovering, the weather improved and I spent a fair amount of time outside. Apart from more continuing leaf fall, it was very similar to last weekend. A small handful of Redwing and Fieldfare flew over, with a couple of Song Thrush and 2 Mistle Thrush. Both Grey and Pied Wagtails visited the pond. A Siskin flock still numbered around 30 birds and kept to the Alders, 4 Lesser Redpoll were seen as were 2 Bullfinch, Chaffinch, Goldfinch and Greenfinch. A Marsh Tit appeared at the feeder which was the first time for several weeks and just one Common Buzzard was visible. There are plenty of Woodpigeons, but numbers in the low hundreds so far, rather than thousand of previous years but everything this year is a little later.

Trees still have many leaves left

No Sheep !!

The pond collecting leaves

Grey Wagtail

Sunday 6 November - Leaf Fall

I had not been to the South coast for a few months, so without a better plan I decided on a morning visit to Selsey. There had been a small Auk movement during the week, but with the winds switching to a WNW direction the prospects were fairly slim of any unusual birds. It was still worth seeing the 3 Great Northern Diver on the sea with a Red throated Diver flying through a single Common Scoter, 3 Brent Geese and distant Kittiwake and Gannet. There were several Auks moving through but most at a distance became sp' only but with a handful of closer recognisable Razorbill and Guillemot. Passerine movement was limited with just 3 Skylark, 4 Meadow Pipit and 3 Pied Wagtails. So not much happening but a pleasant couple of hours and in the company of the locals who always provide decent humour.

At home on Sunday my task was autumn bulb planting - Tulips and Alliums of which I managed about 300. I'm used to the Sheep watching what I'm doing in the garden so it's odd that they're gone  - no they haven't been sold or sent to market, I've pimped the sheep , at least I'm paying for them to have sex !!! - So they're  away on holiday for a few weeks with a Ram - maybe next Spring there will be more Sheep !.

With the falling leaves I've been diligent in removing any from the surface of the new pond where I've refrained from just covering with a net, on the basis I don't wan any passing birds to suffer a fate of being trapped and I don't want the pond to get clogged in its first winter by dead leaf litter. However, maybe there is a looming problem as so far I removed 3 'barrow-loads of floating leaves this weekend  and currently the Beech trees have only lost 1/3 of their leaves and the Oaks are still holding on to theirs. So we will see. The more pleasing news is that both Pied and Grey Wagtails were visiting the pond on Sunday although they merely turned over a couple of leaves rather than do any more helpful clearing.

There was an unusual movement of Gulls early morning on Sunday (any gull sighting is quite unusual here) with 13 Black headed Gulls, 6 Common Gulls and 3 Lesser Black-backed Gulls drifting past. In addition 10 Redwing and 4 Fieldfare were seen briefly stopping in the trees and 4 Mistle Thrush flew over. A quite substantial finch flock of mainly Siskin (I estimated c75 birds on Saturday) but saw only 1 Siskin on Sunday. The remaining list of birds were

Woodpigeon 100+
Stock Dove 5
Starling 30+
Nuthatch
Treecreeper
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Goldcrest 2
Goldfinch 5
Chaffinch 8
Greenfinch 1
Pheasant
Carrion Crow
Jackdaw
Jay 2
Magpie
Robin 3
Dunnock 3
Wren
Blackbird 6
Great Tit 2
Blue Tit 4
Coal Tit 2
Buzzard 3

Sunday 30th October - Foggy

Not much to report from a foggy couple of weekends. Last Saturday I went to Blackdown early and it was foggy, I thought it would gradually lift as the morning progressed but it didn't really clear at all, so a couple of hours were spent with limited visibility, I saw Dave B early on so we walked around together. There were a lot of birds in the copse at the first crosstracks. 100+ Redwing, 75+ Fieldfare and a very large flock 100+ of Lesser Redpolls. A fair bit of time was spent scanning through these birds but nothing unusual was with them. Other sightings included  25 Goldfinch, 2 Dartford Warbler, 1 Chiffchaff numerous Goldcrest and Treecreeper.

A Grey Wagtail has started frequenting the pond at home. I would normally be delighted to see a new bird for he garden list and today I did see a new bird but was not jumping for joy. A Ring-necked Parakeet was being chased by the local Starlings, not a bird I would particularly welcome establishing itself in the village. There was a fair bit of other movement first thing this morning. 4 Skylarks a Meadow Pipit, 50+ Redwing, 2 Mistle Thrush, Sparrowhawk. Siskin 30, Goldfinch 10 and 3 or 4 Goldcrest and a Firecrest still calling from deeper in the gully. No doubt the Woodpigeon invasion is imminent.

Dartford Warbler in the fog

Saturday 15th October - Spurn Day 2

After a good sleep we were keen to get out early and this time avoid some of the crowds as potentially there would be more people around today than yesterday. We drove straight to Kilnsea with a plan of checking the trees and bushes around he churchyard. It was still obvious that there were lots of Thrushes in the area. The wind had dropped and moved to the South but the overcast skies delivered a wet start so the first hour of daylight we were quite damp and didn't see a huge amount, as gradually the rain eased we decided to walk out towards the Canal Scrape along the coastal path. Redwing, Fieldfare, Song Thrushes were everywhere and like yesterday we were still tripping over Robins, we also saw a couple of Woodcock flush from the path in front of us. We walked to the Spurn YWT building and a Black Redstart was on the short grass then 2 Short-Eared Owls flew in off the sea.

Without a clear plan we started to walk along he Spurn peninsula towards the breach. We had better views of a Short-Eared Owl hunting along the foreshore and a Wheatear was on the beach. Thrushes continued to fly past with several Meadow Pipits moving and a flock of 60 Pink-footed Geese. and later c45 White-fronted Geese.

2 Rock Pipits were in the breach area and 2 Lesser Redpolls were the other side. The breach was an area of pure sand about 500m long which had been created a couple of years ago during a Winter storm surge and washed away a road and at high tide the Spurn peninsula is turned into an island. We continued to walk towards the lighthouse under a brightening sky and it was great being out birding and enjoying the new habitat. We worked out that the next high tide was not until much later which would give us plenty of time to reach the point and walk back without the risk of spending the night stranded on the peninsula. In front of a Humber shore hide was a large finch flock which had c50+ Brambling, Chaffinch and Linnet.

The area known as the point was new to both of us and we were guided towards a Dusky Warbler in the scrub near the point which duly showed well after a brief wait.  We also saw 27 Bearded Tits and plenty of Goldcrest a few Blackcap and a late Willow Warbler. We bumped into Colin watching a Redstart and he had just seen a Little Bunting, which unfortunately we didn't. We made time to have a look in the newly refurb'd lighthouse, although we were slightly miffed when we'd climbed the 120 stairs to find out that you weren't allowed outside on the rampart (health and safety reasons !) it had actually been really well restored and set up, although I imagine visitor numbers might be quite low given the only way to get here is a long walk .

By the time we had arrived back at the Spurn YWT buildings we had walked around 8.5 miles. Then news came through of a Raddes Warbler near the canal Scrape, we were delayed slightly talking to one of the Spurn wardens,  found the crowd,  but they had lost the warbler and it wasn't seen again. There was however good views of yet another Dusky Warbler, which as we were photographing news came through of a possible Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler only about 100m away. This really would have been a holy grail to end an already fantastic 2 days.

We arrived on the bank where a 'locustella' type warbler had been seen to fly and gone to ground in the thick grass  near a seabuckthorn bush. Reinforcements were called and a mist net erected around 20m from the bush, by this time a crowd of nearly 100 people had gathered and were organised in a tight circle around the area the bird had been last seen. The military maneuver worked and the locustella wabler waited until it was nearly trodden on before vacating the cover and heading straight into the net. It turned out to be just a Grasshopper Warbler, but it raised he pulse for several minutes and was an exciting end to the day.

Entrance to the Spurn Peninsula YWT reserve

Siskin

Black Redstart

View back to Kilnsea along Spurn Head

Short-Eared Owl

The North Sea has battered the coastline here.

The Spurn Lighthouse

The first obliging Dusky Warbler of the day

he view back to Kilnsea from inside the top of the Lighthouse

The view to the point looking South

Black Sheep ! - Possibly Hebridean

Tortoiseshell Butterfly

Redwing in the sand !

Dusky Warbler in flight

The second obliging Dusky Warbler of the day

Probably the 3rd Dusky Warbler we saw over the 2 days.

Friday 14th October - Spurn Spectacular, in the company of Dunnocks

Spurn Peninsula- Day 1

The Dunnock is a rather poor and overlooked bird in the birding world. The dash of a small bird diving into cover that momentarily raises the pulse is normally followed by a deflatory ' oh it's just a Dunnock'. Indeed, a non-birding friend recently sent me a picture of a bird with 'whats this bird ?' the one word reply of 'Dunnock' was then met with ' I presume that's somewhere between Dunno and B*llocks' which sums up the view most people have of the Dunnock or Prunella Moudularis. Step forward the swashbuckling distant cousin, Prunella Montenella or rather more exotically named Siberian Accentor. Never before this week had a Siberian Accentor graced the shores of the UK. Not only that but it is actually a difficult bird to encounter across it's normal range of Russia and Northern China. However, after a series of Easterly winds one was found in Shetland last Saturday and stayed about two days, then the big news was another bird found late on Thursday afternoon in Easington, Yorkshire. Rapid plans were made and about 10pm on Thursday I drove to Gary's in Kent and we set off for Yorkshire. We arrived just before 5am, had a brief nap in the car then around 6.30am, when it was still dark walked to the area where the bird had been seen yesterday and joined several hundred other birders to await first light and hopefully see the bird.

The viewing was over a wire fence into an old parking area of a former school building. The fence-line was in a narrow tree belt about 30ft wide accessed from a tarmac drive that ran at the back of a Gas Installation. There was room for around 100 people to view at a time and there were over 1000 people, so there was a bit of scrum to start but the good people of Spurn Bird Obs brought some organisational skills into play and an orderly queuing arrangement which he majority of people were happy to follow. The rather attractive Siberian Accentor duly obliged with turning up - in the company of Dunnocks !

The queue of birders at first light

The area where the Siberian Accentor was feeding

The first view, in the company of 2 Dunnocks

The next 2 hours we had several views of the Siberian Accentor and much appreciated start to the day. Whilst we were standing queueing we had already noticed the large number of Redwing, Song Thrush, Goldcrest, Chiffchaff and Robins that were in the area.

We walked along a strip of scrub towards the sea that was full of Goldcrests and Chiffchaffs, with one particularly good candidate for Siberian Chiffchaff. We also saw 3 Lesser Redpoll and 1 Common (Mealy) Redpoll. There were hundreds of Thrushes in the hedgerows, mainly Redwing with a few Fieldfare and Song Thrush and several Brambling along with some Tree Sparrows and I was nice to see that Tree Sparrows were doing quite well in the area given their paucity in the South.

A few more pictures of he Siberian Accentor

2 Lesser Redpols with a Mealy Redpoll - taken through a chain-link fence so a bit hazy.

We then moved to Kilnsea which was already crowded with relocating birders from Easington but here was news of several interesting birds reported from the area so it was a matter of where to try first. We started in the churchyard where both a Dusky Warbler had been trapped and Pallas's and Yellow-browed Warblers had been sighted but after 30 minutes of standing with a large crowd in a small space we had not seen anything so decided to walk to the beach. There were hundreds of Thrushes everywhere and trees dripped with Goldcrests and Robins were in every bush and around our feet as we walked along.

Whilst viewing more Redwing , Fieldfare and Song Thrushes, a Jack Snipe flew out from a marsh and we saw a couple of  Ring Ouzel. At the beach an area overlooking some rough ground had held an Olive-backed Pipit the only view was of the bird in flight as we walked up. There were better views of a Shorelark a the edge of the beach which was quite confiding.

Shorelark

Shorelark

Goldcrests were everywhere, even in the grass.

We then walked to the Canal Scrape seeing 9 Bean Geese on the foreshore, 8 of which were definitely Tundra Bean Geese and one had characteristics of either Taiga or the Middendorffii population. We were fortuitous being on the right side of a hedge when a Dusky Warbler appeared which was duly pursued by a crowd through a hedgerow, which had the benefit of both Woodcock and even a Quail being flushed from thick grass.

Wandering back to Kilnsea we came across a large Brambling flock of probably 40+ birds feeding around a small garden along with another couple of Ring Ouzel. The Bean Geese had relocated to a field giving slightly closer views and then we went to the trees around the Crown and Anchor car park where the previously elusive Pallas's Warbler duly obliged with a viewing. After such a great list of birds we relocated for the final hour of daylight to Sammy's point where 10+ Ring Ouzels were feeding in the paddocks.

What a superb day, we also had the fortuitous luck to bump into Colin Bushell who recommended the Marquis of Grandby in Easington and luckily they had a room free so we were able to finish the day with a few beers and some food talking birds with Colin and a couple of Sussex birders Jon and Nick. We were also excited about what tomorrow might bring as the winds were continuing to blow from an easterly direction.

Dusky Warbler

Waders on the Humber foreshore

Brambling

Another Goldcrest

Siskin

Bean Geese

Ring Ouzel a Sammy's Point