Urban Birding, Winter Roost and WeBs

 This latest blog is about some urban birding and surveys I carry out through the winter and year.

Back on Sunday the 8th I set off again to look for those pesky Gloss Ibis that keep avoiding me over at Wareham. I arrived at the end of the road by the Rugby Club to find a match on and I thought oh well not going to see much this afternoon. I am find the one thing this challenge is doing is pushing me to go and try places I have not been to before. Having said that I have been to Swineham GP a few times and having walked down the lane I noticed and as expected due to all the rain that the fields below the house ( The Curlews) were very flooded and the path down to the gravel pit blocked by floods. I turned left of the path that lead to a small lake and some fields behind the rugby pitches. Here is the distance I noticed a group of large birds over in a far field hoping they were the Glossy Ibis. I was a little disappointed to find it was a group of 84 Curlew ! With having a good look round I ticked of a Pied Wagtail, saw some Little Egrets but could not find any Glossy Ibis anywhere. So as it started raining again I made my way back to the car but stopped just before the house The Curlews as I heard what I though were Siskins and sure enough with some Chaffinch and Goldfinch a small group of Siskins going from tree to a feeder and back to the in back garden so Siskin ticked off and now on 88 species.

After this I made my way to Hole Bays, this is a very special site and to look at it you would not think so with a retail park  a very busy bypass just behind you as you look across the large expanse of water and further down the cycle as you get nearer to Poole Town you have the Poole Rail Station, Poole Pirates Speedway Stadium and rail bridge cutting across the bay.

The bay is approximately 286 hectare and is intertidal and a very important site for wintering waders and wildfowl. Even just this month there have been huge numbers of wintering/resting Black tailed Godwits with the extraordinary count of 5000 plus godwits counted let alone the massive numbers of Wigeon and Pintail that winter at the site it soon becomes apparent how important the mud flats can be for winter stop overs and resting site and so close to very busy area of Poole.

The purpose of my visit though was to hopefully find the Little Gull and female goosander that had been frequenting the bay. After find somewhere to park near the industrial estate I waited for the heavy rain to subside a bit before venturing out and crossing the busy bypass which as been made easier with the press button crossing. Down to the cycle path and setting up the scope up I soon noticed a large group of Wigeon feeding close to the shore line

Male Wigeon

After this is was not long before I found a small gull bobbing about on the water out in the middle and thought got you, a Little Gull, then the bird took flight and their was no mistaking that it was and adult Little Gull with those dark smokey black underwings showing off in the distance like beacons.

The gull made it was closer to the PC World drain area and I could not help watching this suburb little gull flying and dipping a bit like a tern then sort of patting the water as it flew a bit like a petrel just sublime. As you can probable tell I like gulls special Little Gull and Common Gulls I can not explain why I like gull as I do find them especially the bigger gulls a real challenge when in their early years. I have read and read about id features but they do not go into the brain very well, though I think I am slowly very slowly in fact getting to understand some of them. Having spent time watching the gull I set about scanning the bay for the Goosander but for the life of me I could not see or find  it out in the bay and started to think was it holed up on one of the far muddy shorelines or had gone under the rail bridge in to the other sector? Putting the scope on the arch of the rail bridge to look through with a hopeful sight of the said Goosander. I noticed a quick flash of blue dive towards the water and back up and there diving off the bridge was a wonder Kingfisher my 91st species as the Little Gull was the 90th.

As I could not see the Goosander, I decided through intermittent shows I would watch the Little Gull a bit more, but as once again the rain started to get heavy and called it a day. Luckily for though there were to birds on the cycle path Nick and Jackie Hull, and having got to them they asked If I had seen the Goosander with me explaining I had not and spent far to much time watching the gull. Nick shouted quick I have the bird in the scope and I looked through Nick's scope to secure my 92nd species with the female bird. My thanks to Nick and Jackie for being out on such a rainy day and helping me with seeing the Goosander which I might not have seen.

Little Gull bobbing about

 

 Little Gull, 

even at a distance it is unmistakable with those dark sooty black underwings 

The Little Gull

closer showing off the underwing

Little Gull flying away from me

showing grey upperparts and white trailing edge to wing 

and white tipped primaries giving the wing a rounded apparency

Having seen juvenile and 1st winter Little Gulls in the past this was my first adult gull to watch and it was a pleasure watching this bird despite the grey and wet day.

Sunday 15th and out for a winter roost watch for Hen Harriers, I must say before I go any further I will not be give away with any information!

Heavy rain at times and raining all morning and my hopes of seeing a Hen Harrier disappearing like the rain water down the drain. Then a ray of hope in the afternoon as I was getting ready to depart to a heathland  the rain stopped.

I got my self in a comfortable position to watch over the recording area and it was not long before I found a pale morph type Buzzard. Scanning round and picked up a young Goshawk zooming low across the mire and landing in a pine. I managed a very ropey  and not very good record phone scoped capture.

At about 1700 hrs  a grey ghost comes gliding in and flies a round for a short while, what a stunning bird, he flies out of sight but comes tearing back in and starts to gain a bit of height and there to my delight is a ringtail and the two birds interact for a short period just spectacular to watch and the break off and go the sperate ways to settle down and roost for the night, 

The Grey Ghost

A view of the underparts, Male Hen Harrier

A view of the upperparts of a Male Hen Harrier

Crap record captures of a Goshawk

I was not sure whether to put these up 

and sully the page with these rubbish pictures 

It is a real privilege to be able to watch these birds that come to Dorset to winter, though we do not get to see enough of them and I expect we all know the main possible cause of that, but there can be many factors. Harriers are my favourite birds of prey.

Now we are at Sunday 22nd February and it is the day of my BTO WeBs core count at my local patch Longham Lakes. And guess what its bloody raining again but that did not stop play.

I was out late 11:20 hours. I began the count with the geese which had congregated round the island and a large group of Wigeon 158 to be precise. Then I found a wonderful drake Pintail a favourite duck a long with the Pochard, I began to notice the numbers of the wintering wildfowl are steadily going down so the birds are I expect making the way back to there breed grounds.

 While doing this WeBs count I ticked off another 5 species which took my list just over the 100 a total I was hoping to achieve before the end of February.  What a way to reach the 100th bird with a dashing Peregrine that came storming in at a large flock of mixed gulls mostly Black head Gulls swooping and drive at them and putting up at least 500 birds of gulls and crows plus 20 Lapwing which I did not see in the fields, the sound of the birds and sight was memorizing and that word again spectacular just incredible. 

A view of North Lake

The path leading to the causeway

with South lake in the back ground

Common Gull another gull I like to see in the winter

 And the updated list as of 22nd February.

# 88 Pied Wagtail

# 89 Siskin

# 90 Little Gull

# 91 Kingfisher

# 92 Goosander

# 93 Goshawk

# 94 Hen Harrier

# 95 Stonechat

# 96 Pheasant

# 97 Reed Bunting

# 98 Common Gull

# 99 Great White Egret

# 100 Peregrine

# 101 Lapwing

# 102 Egyptian Goose

 

Cirl Buntings

 When I set out on this challenge of trying to see 200 bird species in a year one of those birds I really hoped to see was Cirl Buntings. As only ever seeing one brief view of one a few years back at Labrador Bay in Devon. So when news broke of 8 seen in a crop field near Old Harry Rocks I thought I better go and see them at weekend. Though not really sure of the best parking location and were the crop field was located I asked on a local forum and Blusesky for directions and tips on locating the birds. In  the mean time I read a very good blog by themanchesterbirder.blogspot.com about  a trip to see a Eastern Black Redstart and some fieldcraft and how some folk have stopped asking for approximate locations. This got me thinking I am I one of those folk, because I do find myself asking for locations of birds just like above. And in reality I did know how to get to Old Harry having been in the past, so If I new the way why did I ask for help and location of the birds. When if I had just gone and searched the hedge I might of found something for myself who knows, I think the reason for asking is it makes it a little bit easier with knowledge of the location making me feel more at ease at knowing I am in the right spot.

Sunday morning I set off once again in the darn rain will it ever stop raining this year? I think I read somewhere ( probable on social media) we have had more rain in Dorset these past two months than we did between 1991and 2020? Driving along Ferry Road I  was trying to make my mind up whether to go straight for the Cirl Buntings. Or to carry on through Studland Village and down to Jerry's Point to look for the Red necked Grebe that had been hanging about for a few days. As I drove past the view point at the top of the hill that looks out over the bay and golf course my hart sank a little as it seemed everywhere was shrouded in mist. I mad my decision to carry on to Jerry's Point because I thought the higher ground would most likely be covered is sea mist.

Arriving at the pull in next to Jerry's Point I was sure glad that I had left my wellington boots in the car as the path down was very flooded and water logged.

Having reached the point I was pleased I was able to see over to Brownsea Island. I started scanning around the the grebe. Though the first few scans I only picked up Great Northern Diver 4 and Red breasted Mergansers, Great crested Grebes, followed by 4 Black necked Grebe as nice as it is to see these wonderful birds it was not what I was looking for, so with that I looked in to the small bay to my left and scanned the shore line. Here if found some Grey Plover and Dunlin new birds for year, then suddenly I noticed a grebe pop up to the surface followed by another and there in this small bay was the Red necked Grebe with a Great Crested Grebe giving a great comparison. After seeing this grebe I decided it was now time to go and see if I could get to see the Cirl Buntings.

So I made the short drive to South Beach car park, were I had to pay the exorbitant price of a ticket in the National Trust car park of £3 an hour. Lucky for me a local birder was still at the car park and came over to give me some pointers and the direction to take from the car park. So after grabbing my gear I made my way up the track to Old Harry Rocks, but instead of checking the hedge line I carried on to the spot were the birds were last seen. As I slowly walked to where I could view the field several birds lifted off the field and into the hedge. Shortly afterwards I had a very brief view of a male Cirl Bunting which popped up on top of the hedge and I thought great wonderful better get a picture only for it to disappear, and then what I thought was a female 1st w type bird appeared  which I managed to photograph.

This is what Old Harry looks like on a good day

There are a couple of legends about Old Harry, but the one I like the best is about is about a Poole pirate called Harry Paye. He supposable harassed the French and Spanish. Using the stacks as look out points and by hiding is ship behind the stack. 

 Female 1st/w type Cirl Bunting?

 I digressed a little with the pirate story.

  

Shortly after this brief sighting the birds disappeared with a flock of Chaffinch, I walked up to the next gap in the hedge with another birder as a group of ten were seen at this spot. Though having got there a large flock of finches were flying about and headed out in to the field. I made the decision to move back down to the gate and wait as finches were coming and going to the hedge that was running out in to the field. It was not long before some Chaffinch and a large flock of Linnet turned up which kept me on my toes scanning at any slight movement in the hope it was a mythical Cirl Bunting. Perseverance paid off in the end as four wonderful Cirl Bunting appeared on top and along the hedge line.

Male Cirl Buntings

It is wonderful to be able to see these birds in Dorset, and it is due I believe to the credit of Conservationist and the work the did down in Devon which as enabled this wonderful and charmful buntings to spread along the cost in to Dorset and hopefully set up more breeding territories.   

81# Grey Plover

82# Dunlin

83# Red-necked Grebe

84# Mediterranean Gull

85# Skylark

86# Cirl Bunting

87# Raven 

I do not know if it is but I feel perhaps my blog is a bit same old same stuff? 

I know it is supposed to be all about birds but I think sometimes other stuff that I am interested in just might creep in to the blog, like my new other challenge of 100 plants in 2026 which I signed up to at bsbi.org as I thought this was something I could do while out birding. As  I have had an interest in wildflowers and orchid for a while now and of course during the summer months some dragonflies and damselflies.

  

  

January Ends

 As January was coming to a close and with me still stuck at 71 species for the month I headed off to Lytchett Fields area. I decided I would cut across the Sang and look at the Pools Field and look over Lytchett Bay from the relative new view point Rockley Point View. As I was walking through the field I noticed a raptor just gliding over over head, which turned out to be a Red Kite tick 72 of the year.  The bird was heading towards the field that now have pigs in, it  used to be the old wild flower meadow. I think the pigs are there to churn over the ground? 

This was a good move due to ticking off some of the commoner passerines like Greenfinch, Chaffinch and Meadow Pipit.

Chaffinch

Greenfinch

Like  most of January it was another wet and grey day and as I made my way to the view point it started raining again. The rain eventually stopped ( only to start again a little later) and I took the rain guard of the binoculars and unzipped the telescope. And scanned the bay there were stacks of Wigeon which I tried to count get up to a 150 birds but some of them were so far away it was difficult but there must of been over 200? The next bird to be spotted was a lovely pair of Avocet. I do like these birds in their black and white livery. 

Avocet

This month I have missed some really good birds due to being stuck in a factory milling components on a CNC machine, which is a Computer Numerical Controlled Vertical Milling Machine. But a ho that's life. 

So I managed to hit a target of bird species I was hoping for as when I set out on the 1st I considered 70 to a 100 species was a good number and having got to 80 species in Dorset and 1 in Hampshire I was quite pleased with myself. 

 

72# Red Kite

73# Greenfinch

74# Chaffinch

75# Avocet

76# Greenshank

77# Teal

78# Black- tailed Godwit

79# Stock Dove

80# Meadow Pipit

Now I must write about the one trip out of county into Hampshire to see a very rare bird.

Having heard about a mega sighting of a Killdeer I mulled over whether to go and see the bird.

I never considered ever seeing this North American wader and at the time I did not relise how rare the bird was until I found out that the last one reported in Hampshire was back in 1980 a very long time ago. So with the bird still staying I set off on Sunday morning of the 25th January. Once again it was raining very hard as I was driving to the location of Ripley Farm. Some of the roads were still slightly flooded and as I turned on to the road to the Avon Causeway it suddenly  dawn on me what if the causeway is flooded and what I am I going to do s it was the only way I knew of getting to Ripley. Lucky as I drove along the fields were well flooded but the water was only just beginning to lap the edge of the road.

I pulled into the layby and kitted up and to the long track down to the bird luckly the rain had eased off so I had a pleasant walk down. I was very fortunate that the bird even though distance showed very well and I managed to get some phone scoped shots of this wonderful little plover. I am sure glad I went to see the bird a mega lifer for me.

Killdeer