Levels-birder

April 29th 2009

Over the past couple of days, on my regular visits to Meare Heath drained pool and Noah’s Lake at Shapwick Heath NNR, I’ve seen 2 Greenshanks (my first this year), a Ruff and 4 Dunlin, plus the usual Black-tailed Godwits, Ringed and Little Ringed Plovers; also another, different, adult female Marsh Harrier, lots of Hobbies and Swifts, and a single Cuckoo – which seem to be scarce on the Levels this year? Most years, I struggle to see a Lesser Whitethroat, but have found four recently. This morning I went to Berrow Beach, where I saw 50+ Whimbrel, 13 Bar-tailed Godwits (the reason for my visit), 11 Knot, and 3 Sanderling, and, except for the Knot, managed to take these photos.

The 3 Sanderling were in a mix of plumages between winter and summer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 26th 2009

 

Yesterday, I joined a S.O.S. field trip to Brean Down where the highlight was a singing Grasshopper Warbler (a bird who’s high frequency I can no longer hear) perched fully in the open on the top of a low stunted bush and allowing a great view – I could even see the colour inside its wide open gape; absolutely brilliant. Other interesting birds were a Tree Pipit, 2 male Wheatears and an early Common Swift. Later, in thick scrub near Berrow Church, 2 Lesser Whitethroats were singing but didn’t show.

Today, at Meare Heath on Shapwick Heath NNR, I saw a drake Garganey, 5 passage Black-tailed Godwits in smart breeding plumage, Little Ringed and Ringed Plovers, a female Marsh Harrier and about 30 Common Swifts. On a grey, overcast day with frequent rain showers several Hobbies were hawking insects, low over Noah’s Lake, and I came upon this perched 2nd calendar year bird. My distant photos show its pale, washed out, yellowish-orange trousers and under-tail coverts and its pale, creamy-buff rear crown patch, both features of sub-adult.

 

   

 

April 23rd 2009

Since my last diary entry I’ve made several visits to Meare Heath and Shapwick Heath NNR, where the highlights were seeing 17 Hobbies (hawking insects together over Decoy Lake), an adult summer plumaged Little Gull, 2 Little Ringed Plovers, a White Wagtail and 2 Garden Warblers – my first for the year. Kay and I went back to Tealham Moor on the 22nd and this time we were lucky, finding 2 Yellow Wagtails and a very smart looking male Blue-headed Wagtail. I did, however, manage to miss an Osprey that was present on the reserve that very same afternoon! Early one evening, driving home from the reserve, I came upon this delightful Roe Deer (a young doe by the looks of it?) feeding in a nearby field, and just managed these photos as she ran off, then paused, before slipping through the fence and disappearing from view.

 

 

 

April 20th 2009

This late evening found me in a special area of Somerset that I visit each spring to listen to the song of the Nightingale. My visit was perhaps just a little early in the year and I only heard the one bird, but I was lucky to get these flash-assisted photos of it as it perched in the canopy of a small tree. During my visit here last year I noticed a large, very pale common rabbit, and this time took this photo of what is perhaps the same one? It looks a pale-fawn colour, and I wonder it this is due to a condition that in birds is called leucism – lacking in dark pigments.

 

 

 

                                             

 

April 19th 2009

Today, Kay and I went searching for Yellow Wagtails on three of my local moors, but without any luck – perhaps they haven’t arrived yet? We did get a close view and this photograph of a singing Sedge Warbler, and also saw two Common Whitethroats – presumably newly arrived migrants – at Greylake RSPB Reserve. Later, on Berrow Beach, we saw a party of 7 Whimbrel (my first for the year) and glimpsed a seal as it popped its head up several times just off the beach.

 

 

April 17th 2009

Together with a fellow birder, I spent most of today, after the low cloud had finally lifted, searching for passage Ring Ouzels on Exmoor. No luck with this, but we did find a smart male Pied Flycatcher (photo) and a female Common Redstart; and also saw 2 Wheatears (my first of the year), 3 Grey Wagtails and lots of singing Willow Warblers. Most unexpected were 2 Bullfinches that we came across in low hawthorns up one of the moorland combes.

 

 

We also saw some wild Red Deer: a group of four, including this hind with her last year’s calf, feeding just inside the tree-line; then later a group of 12 that we surprised on the high moor and I managed to take this photo of six of them before they all ran off.

 

 

 

April 16th 2009

After almost a week of looking after our 7 year old granddaughter, it was relaxing to get back to some local birding. At Meare Heath drained lagoon on the 14th, as well as a drake Garganey, 4 Redshank and 6 White Wagtails, I saw these 3 Little Ringed Plovers. Not a photographic illusion, I assure you, the right hand bird really was much larger, some 20% bigger, than its two companions, and showed the roundness of shape so typical of its near relative, the Ringed Plover. Plumage wise – head pattern etc, plus shape and colour of bill and legs, it was a Little Ringed, but what about that large rotund appearance? Was this because it was a large female, perhaps carrying eggs; or could it just possibly be a hybrid between Little Ringed and Ringed Plover?

 

 

Later, at Noah’s Lake, part of Shapwick heath NNR, I saw my first Hobby of the year, my favourite falcon, and watched it hawking insects for ten minutes. Later still, in the afternoon, my visit to Orchardleigh Lake (in the east of the County) turned up my hoped for Mandarin Ducks – a fine pair.

 

On the 15th, my attempt to find a returning Yellow Wagtail on my local moors was cut-short by a heavy thunder storm, and all I saw for my trouble was this Mute Swan nesting in a roadside rhyne.

 

 

This morning, I heard a Bittern booming and watched another make a brief flight, low across the reeds, where lots of male Reed Warblers were urgently proclaiming their newly taken up territories, having not long arrived from their winter quarters in tropical Africa. I also heard and saw my first Cuckoo of the spring, followed, in the afternoon by another at Catcott Lows Reserve, where I also saw this drake Garganey and a pair of lingering Pintail.

 

 

April 8th 2009

Bird-wise, it’s been mostly common fare since my last diary entry. A couple of Red Kites near Marlow, Bucks, during a weekend family visit, and a distant view of a Barn Owl perched in a hedgerow tree on a local moor on my return, has been about the best. I did hear a Bittern booming on a local reserve, and my annual check of three heronries gave me a chance – though not much of one – to get these photos of two very young Grey Herons with one of their parents: silhouetted against the sky, looking upward through a tangle of branches. I also took this very distant photo of two Cormorants on their close-to-touching nests (almost semi-detached) in the same tree at Shapwick Heath NNR.

 

 

 

 

 

April 1st 2009

This morning, with a camera lens better suited to the task, I returned to Shapwick Heath NNR, and (not an April Fool’s Joke) spent an hour ‘up-close’ with yesterday’s male Adder, as it firstly dozed on its regular sunning-patch and then slowly became more alert as the sun gradually warmed its reptillian cold blood. For the first time, I saw the inside of an Adder’s mouth as it open and closed its jaws, showing off its large fangs (absolutely brilliant!).

 

 

 

 

 

Afterwards, and perhaps continuing a theme, I watched this Water Rail from Meare Heath Hide, stretching out its wings and sun-bathing on the edge of the reeds for at least five minutes. The woodland glade walk to the hide was bathed in dappled-sunlight, and it was good to see several bright yellow Brimstone butterflies fluttering back-and-forth, and also my first Comma butterfly of the year.

 

 

To complete a good day, I returned to North Moor on a fine evening and joined about a dozen fellow Somerset birders watching the two hunting Short-eared Owls. I even managed to take this photo – a little distant, but very much closer than my views of two days ago.