Category: Birds

TL:DR – We finally caught up with White-tailed Eagles on a trip to Dorset in September 2022 after seeking them out in various places over the last couple of years.

We took another trip south in September. Stayed some way inland in the historic town of Corfe Castle but couldn’t keep away from the coast and visited RSPB Arne, RSPB Lodmoor, RSPB Radipole Pond, NT Studland, and took a boat trip in Poole Harbour up the Wareham Channel, and a train journey from Corfe to Swanage where we were plagued by Geography Fieldtrips measuring the groynes on the beach.

RSPB Arne is the English homeland of the Dartford Warbler and plenty of other wildlife, although we saw very little of it on our visit for some reason, apart from some “wild” pigs and distant waders. We also missed, by just a few minutes, a White-tailed Eagle fly-by and also failed to see an Osprey way over the moor towards Corfe itself. We didn’t see any Dartfords there either, that would wait until we got to the moors behind Knoll Beach at Studland.

While at Arne, missing the Osprey and WTE, we spoke to various people one of whom recommended a visit to Lodmoor and Radipole Pond (spotted a Clouded Yellow butterfly there) and those sites were generally much busier in terms of birdlife, Great White Egret, Grey Heron, Oystercatcher (dozens), Avocet (hundreds), Curlew, Black-tailed Godwit, Great Crested Grebe etc.

We were lucky enough to see dozens and dozens of House Martins and Swallows when we climbed East Hill in Corfe. Seemingly, Monday the 19th September was a good day for seeing hundreds of departing migrants. Also towards the top of the hill, a couple of Clouded Yellow butterfly.

The 2.5 hour boat-trip with the charity Birds of Poole Harbour was much more of a success than the trip to Arne. We had sightings of Shag and Sandwich Tern within minutes of setting sail and a large flock of Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis, the Chinese Cormorant sub-species, which is much more gregarious than its relative the Common Cormorant.

One of our incredibly well-informed guides (Paul) spotted an Osprey perched in a dead tree on the non-public edge of RSPB Arne, then the other equally well-informed guide (Liv) spotted a White-tailed Eagle (turned out to be the juvenile female with the radiotag ID G801). She was perched high in a pine tree a little further up the channel. It was hard to get clear photos through the heat haze and at a distance of several hundred metres, but worth a try. When the eagle took to the air, I got a reasonable shot at it before a second (a juvenile male) was sighted.

These eagles and the ospreys are both part of reintroduction programmes on the south coast to bring back raptors to this area that were persecuted to local extinction. Unfortunately, there are rich landowners with a vested interested in breeding and killing millions of game birds (pheasants, grouse etc) for a very lucrative sport. They claim the birds of prey are a threat to their industry. The birds are no threat to this vast industry given the huge numbers of game birds involved. The raptors may eat dead game birds, but the industry dumps most of the birds that are shot for sport. Farmers often protest that eagles could take valuable lambs and counter the awarding of reintroduction licenses, they know full well that this is an incredibly rare happening and it’s just an excuse to protect their game birding, which makes them thousands of pounds per person. Eagles will find plenty of carrion and smaller wild birds to eat without needing to tackle lambs.

Interestingly, the eagles, which we used to think needed high mountain and moor, seem quite happy to live in this coastal zone. So, ultimately, translocation schemes will hopefully be successful. We’re still hoping that the Wild Ken Hill licence will be allowed in North Norfolk.

Meanwhile, back on the boat, we continued to add many more species of bird to the boat trip list (which ultimately amounted to 48 bird species) before heading back to the harbour and the lagoon on Brownsea Island where 60+ Spoonbills were feeding.

The Spoonbill is another growing success in England where once the bird was eaten to extinction in the 17th Century. There is a breeding colony in North Norfolk, but dozens are now seen in Dorset and Somerset. The flock we saw on Brownsea is mostly comprised of visitors from The Netherlands. Also had a flyover of Dunlin and sighting of at least one Curlew Sandpiper, Redshank, Greenshank and more. We have seen Spoonbill at various times over the years, but usually only one or two together and perhaps three; there were two at Lodmoor even.

We “twitched” the juvenile Red-backed Shrike and first-winter Citrine Wagtail mentioned in BirdGuides that and previous days. The Citrine made an appearance close to where birders told us it would be. There was some initial doubt that it might have been an Eastern Wagtail, but an expert who heard it call, pinned it down to Citrine.

The juvenile Red-backed Shrike took a lot more hunting down as it was on what local birders know as the old dump, not the Lodmoor reserve itself. BirdGuides was pretty close with its grid reference from earlier in the day. There are usually only a couple of breeding pairs of RBS in the UK each year, and it is essentially extinct here. However, a couple of hundred migrants do skirt the east and south coast of the UK on passage. They’re often known as butcher birds because they hang their prey on thorns or even barbed wire to eat later.

By the end of the holiday, we’d almost forgotten about trying to spot Dartford Warbler (we had seen them at Dunwich Heath on a Suffolk trip earlier in the year). However, after visiting Old Harry Rocks, we headed through Studland and up on to the heather and gorse encrusted dunes behind Knoll Beach and saw perhaps half a dozen, as well as numerous Wheatear and Stonechat.

For those who like lists, these are the 74 or so bird species we saw* and noted during our September 2022 week of birding and sightseeing in Dorset:

Avocet, Bearded Reedling, Black-headed Gull, Black-tailed Godwit, Blue Tit, Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Cattle Egret, Cetti’s Warbler, Chiffchaff, Citrine Wagtail, Collared Dove, Common Buzzard, Common Sandpiper, Coot, Cormorant, Curlew, Curlew Sandpiper, Dartford Warbler (Studland), Dunlin, Egyptian Goose, Feral Pigeon, Gadwall, Goldfinch, Great Black-backed Gull, Great Crested Grebe, Great Tit, Great White Egret, Greenshank, Grey Heron, Grey Wagtail, Herring Gull, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Kestrel, Kingfisher, Lapwing, Linnet, Little Egret, Little Grebe, Magpie, Mallard, Marsh Harrier, Meadow Pipit, Moor Hen, Mute Swan, Osprey, Oystercatcher, Pied Wagtail, Redshank, Red-backed Shrike (Lodmoor), Redwing, Ringed Plover, Robin, Rook, Ruff, Sandwich Tern, Shag, Sinensis Cormorant, Snipe, Sparrowhawk, Spoonbill, Starling, Stonechat (Studland), Tufted Duck, Turnstone, Yellow Wagtail, Water Rail (*heard), Wheatear (Studland), White-tailed Eagle, Widgeon, Willow Warbler, Wood Pigeon, Wren.

There were probably a few other species we saw but didn’t note bringing the total for the week to at least 60. Oh, we also saw quite a few Sika Deer and I did a bit of mothing in Corfe with the LepiLED and added L-album Wainscot and Ruddy Streak (Tachystola acroxantha) to my moth life list.

TL:DR – There was a sudden influx of more than 100 Common Buzzards (Buteo buteo) on farmland after the hay was cut and baled. This species is a type of hawk, not a vulture.

When you get wind of something unusual in the birding world, the temptation is often to head for the site as quickly as possible binoculars slung around your neck and camera in the rucksack on your back. It’s often not the best strategy, birds fly and even if you think you’re being quick off the mark, often the update you saw may be out of date within minutes or hours of it being posted.

So, when I heard there was a large number of Common Buzzard* (Buteo buteo) gathered in a field not 20 minutes’ drive from home, I didn’t jump into the car and slam the pedal to the metal. I waiting until the next update to see how things might be changing over the hours from the first sighting to the next.

The initial report had said there were some 56 Buzzards in a field where the farmer was moving hay bales. The rodent population would have been on the run and it was presumably this that drew the avian crowd, which was apparently joined by a Marsh Harrier, Kestrel, and several Grey Herons. There were several more Buzzards in the adjacent field, apparently. This is an unprecedented number of this species in Cambridgeshire, a county record. Usually, they seem quite solitary and might gather in thermal-circling groups of three or four.

Most I’ve ever seen in one place was directly above our house when there were six riding ever upwards on the thermals. More than sixty in one place seemed bizarre…something you might see in some remote Eastern European valley or flying over Gibraltar Point, perhaps.

Anyway, I still didn’t dash. I was dithering. Worrying about the spiralling cost of diesel, for one thing, but also with the thought that by the time I get to this distant field, Sod’s law would dictate that they would have all departed. The next report came in and said there were perhaps eighty, the one after that told of at least 100 and maybe more in the trees and the fields beyond. So, with a rather pessimistic hat on and in no great rush, I made a coffee in a travel mug, grabbed my camera and binoculars, and headed for the fens.

I pulled up in a layby at the grid reference where all the reports said the Buzzards were to be seen. Pulling on the handbrake I glanced across the fields, they look bare but for grass slowly recovering after successive heatwaves. But for a Kestrel faffing with a vole and a couple of Black-headed Gulls, there seemed not to be much in what had temporarily been Buzzard country…

Not wanting to give in to the disappointment, I got out of the car and focused the binoculars into the middle distance, about 150 to 200 metres, I’d say. First one, then two, three, four Buzzards popped into existence, scattered randomly across the field. As my eyes shifted gear from fenland driving mode to birding mode, I scanned the field and started a more singular count…I got to 26. 26 Common Buzzards, more than I’d ever seen in one place before.

Not bad, a nice number. It was at this point that I trained the bins a little farther into the agricultural distance and realised the field behind and the one to the side had a lot more Buzzards than the nearest. I counted seventy for sure before a flock of them took to the air from the overhead wires, the trees and the hedgerows making a definitive total harder to count. It’s hard to know for sure, one report had indeed said there were 100+, I suspect I saw that many, maybe more this morning. On the other side of the road behind me the fields there had just two or three more Buzzards, another Kestrel, or perhaps the same one relocated, and a Red Kite overhead.

The Common Buzzard is, despite its name, is not particularly common, a few tens of thousands of breeding pairs in the UK. Much maligned and persecuted through ignorance like so many raptors (birds of prey) through the years, there was a time in recent history when you might live a country life and not see one. It’s a protected species now and no longer considered to be under any great threat from those that might have trapped and killed it in years past. The biggest threats today for the bird and pretty much every other species on earth is habitat loss, desertification, and climate change.

Anyway, I was glad a made the effort and used a splash of diesel to see this spectacle. I won’t reveal the location here for obvious reasons, but feel free to email me if you want to see them and wish the birds no harm. I cannot guarantee they’ll still be there by the time you read this, but you never know.

*American readers will be familiar with Buteo species but know them as hawks rather than buzzards. The term buzzard in American English is a colloquial term that oftens refers to the Turkey Vulture, Cathartes aura, which is related to the South American Condor rather than the vultures of Africa, or to the Black Vulture, Coragyps atratus.

I hear (but don’t often see) Cetti’s Warblers all year round out here in the Cambridgeshire Fens. They have a loud and distinctive call, which varies from region to region (they have dialects) and sometimes vary between individuals even on the same patch. To my ear, it sounds like “whi-choo, whi-chooey-choo, whi-chee-choo” or something like that. Quite harsh but a not unpleasant song, can’t be confused with anything else I hear in the fens. Have a listen to some across the UK here.

But, they’re rather shy birds and lurk deep within trees and brambles. Usually, they prefer not to have their photo taken although I have snapped them once or twice before as Sciencebase Instagram followers will know.

There are lots of them on the local bird reserves, including RSPB Berry Fen, where I got a snap of one after it called and popped out from hiding. I hear them in Winter, all through the Spring into Summer and across the Autumn. I’m sure some of them will be migratory like other warblers, but there are enough that stay put that you can catch their call any time of year.

Incidentally, the bird is named for Francesco Cetti (9 August 1726 – 20 November 1778) an Italian Jesuit priest, zoologist, and mathematician. IN case you were wondering, it’s pronounced cheh-tee, not seh-tee, although you do hear a lot of birders saying it with an “s” and not a “ch”.

If you’ve never seen or more to the point heard a Common Grasshopper Warbler, Locustella naevia, then a visit to East Anglia right now might be merited. There are quite a few noted in our local countryside and on nature reserves (April 2022).

They’re summer-visiting migrants and will depart in August. The male’s song, isn’t so much a melody as a churring, turring, reeling tone reminiscent of the sound made by grasshoppers.

I was lucky enough to catch sight of one this morning and with a decent-sized zoom lens it didn’t mind me recording a snippet of video while it reeled. I used an audio editor to add a low cut (high-pass filter) and a high cut (low pass filter) that bracketed the bird’s sound to isolate it from the noise of the gravelworks, wind, and aeroplanes. You can see the spike that is the warbler’s reeling on the right of the image, the mound of noise on the left is rumbling works and wind.

Nearby where the street has a name…

TL:DR – The national bird of Ukraine is the White Stork (Ciconia ciconia), we occasionally see them in the local fenland. Often they are ringed birds or birds that have escaped into the wild from collections.

I went looking for a White Stork (Ciconia ciconia) that had been seen at the marina in the nearby village Earith this morning. I was lucky enough to catch sight of it on the wing circling with numerous gulls and several Grey Herons before it headed upstream and out of sight along the Great River Ouse.

As many readers will know, the White Stork is the national bird of Ukraine, feels rather poignant to have seen one today. Birdwatcher Oleksandr Ruchko writing in The Guardian from Lviv had this to say on seeing the birds return to his homeland:

The stork is very sacred to Ukrainians, a symbol of spring, of babies, and of peace. They are believed to be a kind of amulet, and protect your house against evil. Nobody here ever kills storks to eat, not even in the worst times

The White Stork is widespread on the continent and a bird of fable and legend even to this day in the British Isles despite our having driven it to extinction in the middle ages. Last nesting pair was observed in Edinburgh in 1416. Today, there are a couple of dozen seen sporadically in the UK, some will have come from collections. The one I saw today was unringed but well have been released from a breeding program or other place. Equally, it may well have arrived from continental Europe…perhaps even Ukraine, itself, no way to know for certain.

Meanwhile, I also went back for another look at the Garganey and female Blue-winged Teal on the flood. I caught the Garganey in flight and was rather hoping that I’d inadvertently caught the female Blue-winged Teal in flight too. But, it his looks like a female Garganey chasing a drake Garganey. Funnily enough, the drake has quite a reputation having mated on several occasions over the last few weeks…with the female Blue-winged Teal. So maybe the female Garganey has taken umbrage…hah!

The Garganeys are thought to have headed north from Spain when it got too dry for them there early in the year. There have been lots of reported sightings of this bird in the UK in the last few weeks. The Blue-winged Teal dropped in not long after a Green-winged Teal had already been sighted. Those are both American birds that should really be heading south for Texas not Cambridgeshire, but presumably chose the wrong line of latitude when they set off from The Arctic earlier in the year.

After the garganeys, I spent some time watching Whitethroats, tried to get a photo of one of the Cetti’s Warblers, snapped a Sedge Warbler, and spotted my first Orange Tip butterfly of the year.

I’ve been a bit under the weather with something other than covid but it’s had me stuck indoors for a few days nevertheless. I stoked myself up on some appropriate medication and ventured out to see the Black Redstarts, the Garganey, and the Blue-winged Teal that have all turned up on a fairly local patch (a fenland village currently with a lot of flooding).

There were lots of birders around with big scopes and a few toggers. Some of the birders is toggers too (to paraphrase Ice-T). Speaking of which, one of the birders that you can’t see in the photo told us he had covid, although thought he was probably past being infectious, I kept well away from him, the silly boy!

I latched on to one birder whom I recognised, he was well away from the crowd and had been there for about 5 hours, I asked him for guidance as to the whereabouts of the Garganeys and the Blue-winged Teal.

The Garganeys, which seem to have turned up in the British Isles in fairly large numbers from Spain recently, perhaps because of unusually dry weather there, were fairly static, but feeding and dabbling at a distance from the footpath of about 250 metres. More intriguingly a Garganey drake (Spatula querquedula) was on the far bank, roosting on a log, and right next to it the American vagrant. A female Blue-winged Teal.

The Blue-winged Teal (Spatula discors) is a duck that you normally only see in North America, Central America and the very northerly parts of South America. Intriguingly though our friend the Garganey drake, which is in the same genus as the blue-wing had been observed mating with this female earlier in the week. And, according to the expert was spending a lot of time with her. Another of the Garganey drakes, or maybe the same one, had also been seen mating a female another species in the same genus, a Northern Shoveller (Spatula clypeata).

As to the Black Redstarts, apparently, there was only one around, but I caught sight of it as it popped up to catching a flying invertebrate from the distant roof of a house beyond the village marina. No photo though. Sometimes just a birder and not so much a togger.