Birding Braunie

After days of dark clouds and heavy rain, the weather finally abated and gave us blue skies and a chilly ground frost that warmed my heart. The bird I have been chasing for a few weeks now doesn’t really enjoy damp wet conditions and so with my new fur-lined trapper hat attached to my head, I headed out to the Wild Coast Project at Wallasea Island. I was a man on a mission but a man without wellies which would prove to be only a small oversight as it would turn out. Reed Bunting So I had light, I had a camera (of sorts) so all I needed was the action. I’m still not totally sure about my little Nikon in terms of its ability to do what it says. The Sports mode seems to blur things even more than the Auto mode and everything else seems to do nothing I need. I did get this smart Reed Bunting though so it can do it when it wants but I need good light. The mudflats held pretty much the cast I would expect for this feature. Dunlin, Common Redshank, Shelduck, Ringed Plovers, Lapwings, ...

It’s nice to birdwatch during the week when most pepole are working. Hides are empty and I can spread myself out. dash over to the other side of the hide whenever I want; open all the windows even talk to myself (this often happens even when there are people about). So I goes to the Rainham Marshes RSPB Reserve. The tide was high from the recent North Sea surge but not enough to affect any part of the reserve. I had hoped to see the pair of European White-fronted Geese that had dropped in the previous day but they proved to be elusive – something fairly common when I’m looking for particular birds. A walk along the Thames river path, something of a custom for me, produced the usual species. Wigeon and Teal on the river, a few Rock Pipits playing in the flotsam and indeed, the jetsam that litters the foreshore. The wind was brisk and the skies threatening but the walk along the river was still a release from the 9-5 slog many people were enduring. I headed up to 'Serin...

I thought it might be nice to Wallasea Island where the RSPB along with Crossrail have embarked on an impressive venture known as the Wild Coast project. The project is huge but they are slowly but surely sculpting an impressive wetland and salt marsh landscape using dumper truck after dumper truck of earth taken from the Crossrail tunnelling currently boring its way through the earth while at the same time, allowing the sea to flood into it, thus creating a natural biodiverse environment that will take until 2019 to complete. The birds don’t seem to mind all this work going on and are largely undisturbed by it anyway. On the seaward side, Shelduck were counted at around 120 birds. lapwing about 450 and dark-bellied Brent Geese 240. Dunlin 135, Black-tailed Godwit 35, Ringed Plovers 20+. On the land a flock of 20 Skylark were of note as well as a pair of Stonechat in the Wild Bird Cover. This area by the car park also had a pair of Marsh Harriers but no Hen Harriers. It’s goin...

I seem to have done quite a bit of birdwatching lately. It’s hard work you know. Not only do I have to* carry a ruck sack with a heavy duty Thermos, a not so light telescope which is inevitably attached to a tripod which, no matter which way I sling it over my back, sticks it’s lever arm into my back and a pair of bins to boot. Add to this a camera and assorted bits and pieces for digiscoping, a pen that works and a notebook with blank pages (rare), gloves, hat and iPhone. Everything is always in another pocket to the one I put it in and it can all get a bit frazzling. Then, when I get home, I go through all the bad pictures and try to salvage at least one to add to the blog I feel I must write now I have been doing them for 4 years...I have duty to my reader you know. * I don’t have to do any of this really. So sometimes, it’s easier for me to just go local. No fuss and no thinking. I know the valley well from Walthamstow to Ware and on a good day it can be as good as anywhere in ...

It must be 8 years since I last went to RSPB’s Ouse Washes. I wasn’t able to get there for the Northern Harrier but thought I might get a few of the species missing from my year list here. Specifically, Tree Sparrow, Short-eared Owl, Bewick’s Swan and Hen Harrier. Wrong. I did find one Bewick’s Swan among the hundreds of Whooper Swans that honked back and forth from the Washes to the blackest fields you’ll ever see. Whooper Swans Quantity, not quality was the order of the day. Thousands of Lapwing, Golden Plover and Wigeon grazed on the islands across the Wash, only taking to the air when an interested Marsh Harrier glided through. In the hedgerows that dissect the fields, only Corn Buntings were found. No Tree Sparrows among them either but there was a Canary of all things. Not sure I can count that though. Very bad photo coming up.... That whitish blob in the middle dummy! Things could have been better. I think I forgot to mention that i had a hangove...

Saturday 26 October 2013 So everything was planned down to the last bacon roll. My yearly (this may change) pilgrimage to the birding hotbed of North Norfolk had arrived. With my good friend Ed riding shotgun, nothing could go wrong, could it? On Friday evening I set up a text account with RBA (Rare bird alert) for a free trial. Brilliant, I get 5 free texts for Friday night only. Totally useless and so they’ve now lost me. At least I have a Birdguides App staring at my on my phone, so we wouldn’t miss a thing so long as the 3G works up there............... With the car loaded with beer, bacon and binoculars, we dashed up the A11 to Thetford. Just north of Thetford lies Lynford Hall, famous for it’s Arboretum.  And here was where a Two-barred Crossbill had been seen rubbing wings with a flock of 20 or so Common Crossbills. We found the spot and a few other birders and began staring up at the top of a few larch trees. The first bird we found was a Hawfinch . wasn’t expecting thi...