Long periods of inactivity

And then flurries of activity. The title accurately describes this blog, I think.

After a very long hiatus I thought I better post something to enlighten any dedicated, check-every-day type readers I might have!

Local highlights were finding my first ever self found Waxwings! 15 in Netheravon Road South in Chiswick on the 3rd of March gave me a pleasant surprise when they flew over trilling, 5 of them stopping to grace the pages of one lucky oblivious person's garden list:

Phwoar. Get in there.

Having started ringing very recently however gave me an opportunity to get some much better views of Waxwings!

Jheeeeeeze.

In a close second in the most-exciting-patch-bird competition comes this pair of beauties that were present on the 5th March:

Redshanks. Any waders on the patch are quite an excitement.

So far on the river by Chiswick Eyot I've actually only had 5 species of wader: Redshank, Oystercatcher, Common Sandpiper, Snipe, Lapwing. Considering that it's a River this is a little disappointing. And considering the close proximity of the Wetland Centre (which gets Godwits, Dunlins and Green Sands along with occasional Avocets and Wood Sands) it's more than a little disappointing! I suppose it's a combination of the dearth of inviting mud other than at low water, not spending that much time on patch and the high level of disturbance in comparison. Perhaps I might add some more to that list this year.

I didn't notice this Blue Tit in my garden was ringed until I took this photo,

Another very odd record came on Friday the 25th March in the afternoon when I watched a female Pheasant nearly get run over on the train tracks. Twice. Not really having much of a contiguous area to call the patch I'm having it anyway.

And a Chiffchaff just outside the front door only the other day provided a pleasant summery surprise.

P.S. Hi Jona

Not a slaty backed gull.

As the title suggests I wasn't one of the lucky few to see a Slaty Backed Gull this friday just gone, slightly regretting my decision not to rush across London that day presuming it would stay and be seen well again. C'est la vie, the french would say. Or Merde.


Today was much more successful though, ended up going to Barnes again where I bumped into a Brent Res birder who'd obviously brought with him some luck for his once annual winter trip to Barnes. A gorgeous Woodcock fly over once whilst in the WWF Hide was then repeated as we were walking to the peacock tower with the bird circling right over our heads, showing off and giving me some the best flight views of Woodcock I've ever had. The female Scaup was still present, initially being pointed out to me sleeping in front of the observatory and then had good but distant views of it swimming about from the peacock tower. And just to top things off the bird I'd been most hoping to see popped up on the shingle island in front of the tower, a very pretty little Water Pipit, disguised ridiculously well against the shingle.

Three very good London birds in one day, and I only got to the site at 12PM.

Other highlights were a male Sparrowhawk, loads of Wigeon, Shelduck, a pair of Pintail and the usual delightful Lapwings. Large gulls were notably absent however, which left me unable to even string a Slaty Backed :(

The light was so appaling that the camera again didn't get much of an outing although I did have a go at photographing the Water Pipit...

 Spot the Water Pipit.

Just trust me, there's a Water Pipit there.

Part of about 60 Wigeon.

And these are a couple from Chiswick Eyot on Saturday.

Not a Slaty-Backed Gull.

 

Not a Slaty-Backed Gull. It is ringed though, but I couldn't read it.

Not a Slaty-Backed Gull.

Not Slaty-Backed Gulls.

P.S I'm getting good at these unintentionally arty shots.

Barnes

Went to the London Wetland Centre on Sunday where I bumped into Neville Smith and Matt Bourne who helped put me onto the most interesting birds straight away, which was helpful considering within about an hour of arriving at the site I urgently had to leave! Managed to catch up with a Bittern and the female Scaup that's been there for a couple of days as well as all the regulars, the gorgeous Lapwings, Wigeon, Shovelers and Snipe. The camera never got itself out of the bag though so unfortunately I don't have any pictures to go with these names.

I will, instead, use the opportunity to post some of my older photos (about week ago :P). I think I've come to the realisation that I am not and never will be a prolific bird blogger. I'm never going to compete with the greats of blogging (Wanstead Birding for a start!), I don't know what it is but there's something I lack. Whether it's the creativity or the desire to share with the rest of the world something going on in my head I seem to lack the impetus to actually get writing, to sit down and compose something that aside from the bare facts of this bird was seen here at this time and there's a kind-of-recognisable photo of it will actually be of some use to people, provide some sort of cerebral stimulation and give them something to think about. Whilst there might well be thoughts of this manner floating about my head I don't quite know how to express them with the written word nor how to fit them in behind the guise of this, a birding blog. No great loss as it's just something that I've come to realise I prefer to enjoy by reading the fruits of someone else's imaginative labour, rather than try to force myself to think of something original and interesting to post.

That's not to say I'm packing the blog in, far from it! Instead I think I'm just going to make the rest of my posts clearer and more concise, to offer them just as an ornithological record for anybody who might be interested or who chance upon this blog. It'll save the odd pressure I feel that anything I write should have to be something else, something more.

Here, pictures:

 Oi Oi Cheeky Boy.

Gorgeous

I'm sure this is symbolic somehow

P.S If this post appears a load of tosh excuse me for the fact that I'm kicking back after a week of exams.

A New Year

Well the New Year has come around and it's the time when people begin posting their roundups of 2010, hopes for 2011 and 'the year in pictures' style posts. Having only had the Blog for a couple of months and not made much use of it I don't think doing the same here that I'd really have too much to mention but I'm still in the jolly mode of the festive season so I'll give it a little bit of a go.

The year ended up with a lovely trip up to Leeds to stay with family for Christmas and New Years and a couple of visits to Fairburn Ings where I racked up a lifer in the form of a couple of Willow Tits as well as a very showy Water Rail and my first ever views of a Weasel and Mink.

Overall it's been a great year, I didn't get up to half as much birding as I would have liked but there've been some seriously good birding experiences I've had. My trip earlier in the year to Extremadura probably being my best birding experience of the year. A close second in wildlife terms was also my trip on the Pride of Bilbao, the birds amounted to a Sabine's, some Manxies, a couple of Storm Petrels and lots of Gannets and Fulmars but it was brilliant nonetheless. Watching a Bonxie come in right over the bow of the boat on the last, drizzly day being mobbed by a Storm Petrel was incredible. As were the Cetaceans, Long Finned Pilot Whales, Sperm Whales, Minke Whale, 3 Species of Dolphin and a genuinely beautiful moment where a Cuvier's Beaked Whale logged peacefully just beneath the water barely a meter from the boat were all totally new experiences for me and from the moment we set off had me hooked on Pelagic Wildlife.

So what do I want from 2011?

Really I could do well to sum it up in one word, happiness. The family and friends around me have provided me with plenty of it this year and if there's one thing that I can be bold enough to ask for this coming year it's more of the same.

In fact to ask what I want from 2011 seems a little defeatist. Here's what I'm going to get from 2011:

• See more Cetaceans, I've really bitten the bug now.
• See more Birds. More lifers and more dedicated patch working. Out at the crack of dawn type stuff.
• Keep up French. I no longer have to do a language at school so I'd really like to try and keep learning for the sake of learning it. There might also be a chance I could begin to learn some Albanian for this year which would be mega exciting.
• Succeed in my exams. Ultimately this is going to be one of the most important things I do this year so I better do it well. 

Simple enough...

67 White Fronted Geese!!!1!11 Had I been looking.

Bird news is almost always a good thing, but as with anything (apart from a Mobius strip...) it's got another side. The "oh-look-how-shit-at-patchwatching-you-missed-62-White-fronted-Geese-that-almost-definitely-flew-right-through-your-patch" side, as I have affectionately come to know it.

Because yes, indeed, yesterday I missed 62 White fronted Geese which flew upriver from the Barnes Wetlands Centre at 2.30. There are 3 main reasons this grates at me and makes me want to eat my own intestines in a slightly odd form of peaceful protest at all the Geese missing me by.

1. I was on patch at 2.00.
2. I was at home, 2 minutes sprint away from the river at 2.30. 
3. Alternatively I have a roof which is a 1 Minute ascent and then typically a 25 minute awkward for the watching neighbours descent.

Unfortunately I don't have a pager nor know enough of the Barnes Crew to have got a heads up on the geese, although the Wetlands and Chiswick Eyot are so close it would have to be near instantaneous for me to stand a chance of getting on them. And these were birds that probably actually existed as well, as opposed to the Barnes triangle of 'Dodos' and 'Hoopoes' in the visitor books.


Anyway it's all irrelevant as I've moved on, went down the river today and found a mother fudgingly awesome bird. A Stock Dove looking very cold on the muddy foreshore. A single Snipe was visible although the tide meant they were probably feeding somewhere not so visible and a group of 5 Gadwall flew past this lone male.

Unintentionally arty shot of a Gadwall

Wannabe artsy shot of three crows.

Two groups totalling 12 Redwing flew East calling and nothing much else was going on. I convinced myself out of going to the Wetlands Centre in the afternoon based on the fact that it was really cold and I'd probably not see yesterday's 62 White fronts so instead I went and did some very last minute Crimbo shopping and a little bit of revision.

Happy days!

The one that really never was.

It turns out (surprise surprise) that my sub adult Gull that I thought may be a Caspo was nothing of the sort. I saw the bird much better a couple of days ago and whilst I can see how I ended up with the impression of a bird that really stuck out it's clearly not a Caspian. And clearly is a proper good example of a Herring Gull. Because I'm a big man who'll admit to his mistakes I've posted some photos to show just how much of a whopper this one was. I swear, it looked nothing like this when I saw it...

Actually if I'm being honest it looked pretty much just like that, albeit with a little less head streaking. I think the first photo shows what might have got me all excited and the rest show why I'm a dunce.

Snow and Birds!

With the recent cold weather the local birding's started to look up. It's interesting to see how weather extremes affect birds and the cold weather's certainly been pushing some interesting birds through, which even with the knowledge these movements are a desperate attempt to stay alive you can't help but be fascinated by it.

A Meadow Pipit on the foreshore by Chiswick Eyot and another 3 that flew over in the past two days are some of my favourite birds with their stuttering flight and olivey tones. They're also one of my favourite things about Wormwood Scrubs. Watching their "this way, that way, no this way" sort of flight above the grasslands their is a sheer delight and proof that beauty in nature can be found no matter where you are.

A snowy dog walk.

Yesterday also saw 5 Skylark go South over Chiswick House Grounds during a walk through the very beautiful snowy park. The pond was nearly totally frozen over and I can see why there have been so many Moorhen on the river of late. Other birds in the park included a couple of Redwing, a Grey heron in a tree and seemingly loads of Woodpigeons. There must easily have been 50 in a semi-associated cluster of small groups that all seemed quite agitated and would take flight at very little.



I discovered the error of my laziness when checking the londonbirders wiki page to find Neil Anderson had reported 3 Snipe on the Eyot as part of a WeBs survey. I usually don't bother to check the length of the Eyot as it means I have to double back on myself and I'm a lazy get. Sure enough though the next day I checked the whole of the island, peering through people's front gardens etc to get a good view and there plonked in front of me were 3 Snipe. One promptly flew right over my head in the general direction of my garden and the other 2 sat there begging to be photographed by someone with a 7D and 500mm lens. Instead they got a good helping of pretend shutter noise from my trusty Panasonic FZ 45. I also saw what I presume was one of the birds fly upriver a little later on.

 A Snowy and Icey Chiswick Eyot.

Two Snipe! Grazie Neil.

A very confiding Grey Wagtail was also strutting up and down a semi submerged log. With their extravagant gait and beauty in a somewhat subdued way Grey Wagtails are a favourite bird of mine. So I took a gratuitous amount of shots of this what I believe may be a 1st Winter.

A Mute Swan flying downriver provided an opportunity for some more flight shot practice and I think a couple of the shots turned out alright.

Through the Mist

And into the blue Sky.