Pec

The first 'Pec' for Broom.  Just part of Broom gravel pits great run of birds this year. These include: Purple Heron, Glossy Ibis, Rough-legged Buzzard, Roseate Tern, Spoonbill.  Not bad for a dirty hole in the ground!

Kite delight

Red Kite near Southill

These things are now pretty widespread around Bedfordshire.  However there are still pricks who go out and try to poison them - take a look at the Hexton incident.  That link is particularly galling as Red Kites were becoming a wonderful feature of nearby Pegsdon Hills; one of my favourite places to go birding locally.  Both kites and Ravens were slowly getting harder to see around the hills and now we know why.  Really makes my blood boil!

Dogging

Prairie Dogs running wild at Broom

This wasn't a species I ever thought I'd see around Broom - Prairie Dogs!  After a tip-off the other day about these I was a little sceptical of their existence - I thought it was so unlikely, especially as I'd been down to try and see them a few times and only seen Rabbits.  This morning I ambled down and saw what I thought was a huge ginger rat zoom over the grass.  After a minute or so I spied two little heads peeping out of a burrow - blimey!

So, where are they from, how long are they going to last in the wild, and are they bad for the local environment?  I guess time will tell, but for the moment they're an interesting addition to the local fauna.

The sound of spring

Paul H and I popped up to Paxton Pits this evening to see the Nightingales.  Only a handful of birds are in already but one of them performed admirably for us.  Wonderful birds.  If you want to see and hear Nightingales then Paxton Pits is most definitely the place to go.

(Blimey - it's amazing what else you find out when Googling 'Nightingale' - my post isn't about "a care home for older Jewish people", nor a "goth rock, now progressive/AOR metal/rock band from Örebro in Sweden", or a gay nightclub, or even somewhere to go and get "classically stylish clothes for mature women in sizes 10-34 including wide fitting shoes" but feel free to follow the links in case you've arrived here accidentally)

Slav

This Slavonian Grebe smacks of deja-vu.  A summer plumage bird turned up in mid-May last year at Priory CP, before moving to Pitsford Res to spend the summer.  I suspect this bird, currently at Stewartby Lake, is the same individual on a return visit - it just needs a few more weeks to really look smart.

GWE

 

This Great White Egret was a relief to see. It is just the second record for Bedfordshire after a ten minute visit from presumably the same bird on 1st January 2012. Well played Nick Cook and Richard Bashford for pulling this one out the bag! Your next pints are on me.  Radwell Lakes, 6th April 2012.

Lovely Philippines

I'm slowly getting round to adding bits from my recent Philippines trip - there are a handful of videos which I will upload to the IBC, and I will put any photos on Flickr.  Above is a Lovely Sunbird.  More to follow...

Black Reds

Black Redstarts are one of my favourite birds, and these two turned up today just outside my office window at The Lodge.  I think they are probably a female and immature male.

Azorean type Gull video

Azorean type Yellow-legged Gull from Steve Blain on Vimeo.

Some video of the second Azorean type Yellow-legged Gull at Stewartby Tip, October 2011

Another hooded Yellow-leg

So, I'm not quite sure what to make of this gull.  It's got yellow legs, a dark blue-grey mantle, not a lot of white in the wing tips, and a dark hood.  I guess its an extreme michahellis?  Or is it another atlantis type?

It was certainly striking when I picked it out of the melee on Stewartby tip this afternoon.  On an open wing shot I have it has a band on P5, and appears to have quite a bit of black still in the coverts making it a third-winter type.  My current best guess is a michahellis with an above average dark hood.  Any other suggestions?

EDIT - some more images of this bird can be found on my Flickr here.  These were taken Sunday morning in slightly better light.

Azorean teaser

Note P10 still growing and with a small mirror.  Impossible to see P9 here but that's still growing too

The Azorean type is at around 11 o'clock from the centre of the image.  It's mantle is far darker than any Yellow-legged or Herring Gull, and yet paler than the surrounding Lesser BB's

It's big.  And dark.

After finding what I thought then was a possible candidate for an Azorean Yellow-legged Gull in the Stewartby roost in August, I then bump in to this thing this evening.  In my opinion it looks really good.  When you compare this bird to the Didcot bird Ian Lewington found in October 2009, it looks extremely similar - I would even go so far to say this could be the same individual?

So what do I need to nail it?  Better views and lots more video!  I guess I'll be back at Stewartby again tomorrow...

See two Grey Phals, get a Sabs free!

Big blow = wrecked seabirds inland.  The Grafham haul included two lovely Grey Phalaropes, and a spanking Sabine's Gull - all together on the dam!  What does Bedfordshire get?  A Manxie under a bush.

Defecting

Not a bad evening's birding over the border in Cambridgeshire - juvenile White-winged Black Tern, female Garganey, three Yellow-legged Gulls, Ruddy Shelduck, 4 Ruff, Greenshank, and a Green Sand.

In Beds this morning, a long walk round Pegsdon Hills produced an elusive male Redstart and a good flock of c.150 Goldfinches.  Later in Rookery 4 Ruff, and two Tundra Ringed Plovers were the highlights from the fast-disappearing muddy edged pool.

Turtle Dove, Devon Drive

Turtle Dove, Devon Drive a photo by steve_blain on Flickr.

I've heard Turtle Dove purring twice in the four months we've lived in our new house, but hadn't seen it - that was until this evening when one landed on the fence! Stunning birds, becoming rare locally, and a wonderful garden bird to boot.

Larid

A thing of beauty.  At least, I think so.  This is the summer gull roost at Broom gravel pits.  The roost generally starts to happen in mid-July and goes through to late October before dispersing.  It's mainly a Lesser Black-back roost, but along with up to 2500 of these, are smaller numbers of Black-headed, Yellow-legged, and Common Gulls.  Med Gulls are regular, Caspian Gulls are rare, and Herring and Greater Black-backed Gulls are virtually unheard of until late September.

Never found anything super-rare amongst them, but I live in hope.  Maybe one day a Franklin's Gull will grace Broom with its presence?  Just a juvvy Med Gull, 11 Yellow-legged, 1200 LBB, 400 BhG's, 2 Herring Gulls, and a Common Gull tonight.  There's always tomorrow evening.

Croak

I spent a few hours mothing at The Lodge yesterday evening (yes, I've gotten quite in to that dark art recently too), but while I was there was drawn towards the magic sound of croaking Natterjack Toads on the heath.

The sound below was taken with my Iphone 3G, IProRecorder, and Lupo mini mic, and the image above was a 4 second exposure looking from The Lodge over Biggleswade Common towards Biggleswade.

Natterjack Toad at The Lodge by Steve Blain

Teacher-weacher

Common Rosefinch, Fowlmere, Cambridgeshire from Steve Blain on Vimeo.

I have fond memories of singing Rosefinches.  This was one of the 'stand out' birds for me from my very first trip abroad - to Russia, at the tender age of 13, in 1992.

It was a YOC organised trip, back when they had such things, to a conference for over 100 Russian kids, as well as a group from the States, and around 10 British YOCers.

A few things stick in my mind about the conference - lots of talks (in Russian, then translated to English) about Crows, an id quiz with bird skins, the smell of Russian disinfectant (or it could have been vodka?) around the canteen, and eating raw fish.

Obviously, the best things about the conference were the birds, and the place we stayed at was superb.  It was a college campus in the heart of rural Russia, around fifty miles east of Moscow.  The near-by village was full of wooden houses with nest boxes for Starlings, and surrounded by fields vibrating to the sound of Corncrakes. The woodland had exciting things too - fighting Golden Orioles which tumbled to the ground, hulking and slightly ghostly Black Woodpeckers, nesting Long-eared Owls with curious squeaky-gating youngsters, difficult to see Red-breasted Fly's and Greenish Warblers in the canopy.  The river, with its rather deadly looking wooden bridge you had to cross, had breeding Common Gulls, with River Warblers, and Blyth's Reed Warblers singing from the lush growth along its edges.  One day was spent in the marshes, a short bus trip away.  These had hordes of White-winged Black Terns dipping over the pools, and I remember walking through a meadow with whickering Black-tailed Godwits shimmying overhead.  A male Citrine Wagtail singing from an earth clod was blindingly bright, and a Terek Sandpiper scooted off a scrape of water as we passed by.  It was an unbelievably top trip, and undoubtedly sparked my interest in foreign birding.

Oh yes, and there were oodles of breeding Scarlet Grosbeaks, as we called them back then.  The Russians apparently called them 'Teacher-weacher' birds because of their lovely simple song.  Hearing the, unfortunately rather dowdy, Fowlmere bird singing from its favourite tree brought all these memories flooding back.

Wiggle it, just a little bit

Displaying Wood Whites from Steve Blain on Vimeo.

Spent a great few hours looking for these chaps in Northants last weekend. Wood Whites at Salcey Forest. The male does a great little display over the female - it wiggles its antennae and shakes its proboscis over the head of the female while occasionally flicking its wings. Totally absorbing to watch.

Spotted in Milton Keynes

Spotted Sandpiper at Caldecote Lake, Milton Keynes from Steve Blain on Vimeo.

A lovely local bird, just a shame it was in Bucks. Wonder where it is now?

Rare breeder

You don't see many of these in the UK, but can anyone tell me what it is? The only clues I'll give you are that it was bred in Bedfordshire, and there are usually less than ten breeding pairs in the UK...