29th January 2012 - London Wetland Centre

This was the first trip of the year to the London Wetland Centre for us, which was unusual as we meant to head there earlier in the year - on the 1st!  It's one of our favourite haunts and we got a solid list, with one new bird for the year which was pretty much guaranteed there!  There was a very excitable Grey Heron we spotted flying over us about 8 times during the day, maybe he was making a survey of the site...  We looked for the resident Peregrine on Charing Cross Hospital and he was kindly perched there, which made the first for the year. 

As we only have a balcony (that despite having a bird feeder on it for 18 months, has seen no action), we took advantage of a trip up to Buckinghamshire to see Stuart's mummy to take an hour to take part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch.  She'd had Lesser Redpoll during the day, but of course they flew off the moment they spotted us driving away, so unfortunately that wasn't a lifer for the day!  45 minutes in, we'd only had visits from a Robin and a lovely Great Spotted Woodpecker.  It picked up a bit in the last quarter of an hour though, with Magpie, Blackbird, Coal Tit, Collared Dove, Blue Tit, Dunnock and Great Tit all popping by!

	WWT London	Big Garden Birdwatch
1	Grey Heron	Robin
2	Moorhen	Greater Spotted Woodpecker
3	Coot	Magpie
4	Mallard	Blackbird
5	Starling	Coal Tit
6	Parakeet	Collared Dove
7	Robin	Blue Tit
8	Lapwing	Dunnock
9	Jackdaw	Great Tit
10	Carrion Crow
11	Mute Swan
12	Shoveler
13	Tufted Duck
14	Black-headed Gull
15	Teal
16	Canada Goose
17	Cormorant
18	Great Tit
19	Blue Tit
20	Blackbird
21	Magpie
22	Long-tailed Tit
23	Peregrine
24	Water Rail
25	Pied Wagtail
26	Herring Gull
27	Lesser Black-backed Gull
28	Wigeon
29	Greylag Goose
30	Gadwall
31	Pintail
32	Shelduck
33	Great Crested Grebe
34	Chaffinch

My year list for 2012 comes to 87.

Read More

22nd January 2012 - Dungeness

Dungeness was certainly the golden trip of January.  Despite facing the harsh winds (I didn’t wear a skirt this time though!) and freezing gales on only 4 hours sleep, it was a star trip.

We met Jono Forgham (http://littlehadhambirding.blogspot.com) and Graeme in the car park by the nuclear power station and headed out to the The Patch.  I found a nice winder buffer to the side of the bird hide and huddled here whilst the others scanned the sea with their scopes.  In one of my warmer moments I joined them scanning with my binoculars and was lucky enough to get my first lifer of the day – a Red-throated Diver.  Stuart unfortunately missed it as it was flying and it is extremely hard to explain to other people where birds over the sea are!  Another two lifers were sighted on that stretch of the sand, a Razorbill and a gorgeous Kittiwake.  After a scope was narrowly saved from smashing to the ground in a particularly hefty gust of wind, we headed over to the fishing boats to try and spot the Caspian Gull and Glacuous Gull that had been seen there.  We had no luck with the Glaucous, but the Caspian Gull was spotted sitting in amongst others gulls.  Unfortunately before I could get a look a car came by and disturbed them, but the gull was gracious enough to fly past about 10 minutes later and so became the fourth lifer for the day.  The winds had blown Gannets and Guillemots closer to the shore so there were some spectacular views of these two species.  We decided numb limbs were a sign we should go and headed round to the RSPB reserve, where coffee and chocolate was had to help with the warming up.  On the road up to the reserve we had a delightful view of over 70 Tree Sparrows flocking from bush to bush, another lifer!  Some lazy birdwatching then ensued from the visitors' centre, where a pair of Oystercatchers were hanging out on an island.  Walking around the reserve a Stonechat was spotted to the side of the path but the best view was to come 5 minutes later when we rounded a corner and saw the unmistakeable head of a Great White Egret.  The next lifer to appear on the horizon was a lovely Merlin swooping over us.  A trip to the ARC Hide (first time as we managed to miss it on the previous visit) gave an amazing view of a Bittern flying in and then showing itself on the end of the pool.  An excellent spot from Stuart lead to the next lifer for both of us - 'I've got a weird duck in my scope and can't ID it...'.  The duck turned out to be a female Long-tailed Duck, well done Stuart!  A variety of other ducks were spotted and a few Barnacle Geese on the journey to the next place.  I unfortunately then had to miss out the next spot as I was exhausted but Stuart had a great time looking for birds at dusk and got his first Mistle Thrush.       

The day ended rather drastically as I nearly broke Stuart's rib when we were trying to jump start the car.  I haven't driven in 6 years, I don't remember which pedal the brake is...and when I'm driving towards a wall at high speed, I am going to slam my foot down on it when I finally get told which one it is!  Ooops.   

1) Mute Swan
2) Canada Goose
3) Carrion Crow
4) Kestrel
5) Magpie
6) Pheasant
7) Caspian Gull -NEW FOR LIFE LIST!
8) Red-throated Diver - NEW FOR LIFE LIST!
9) Razorbill - NEW FOR LIFE LIST!
10) Kittiwake - NEW FOR LIFE LIST!
11) Guillemot
12) Gannet
13) House Sparrow
14) Cormorant
15) Herring Gull
16) Lesser Black-backed Gull
17) Greater Black-backed Gull
18) Tree Sparrow - NEW FOR LIFE LIST!
19) Marsh Harrier
20) Coot
21) Robin
22) Shoveler
23) Oystercatcher
24) Wigeon
25) Teal
26) Gadwall
27) Greylag Goose
28) Stonechat
29) Great White Egret - NEW FOR LIFE LIST!
30) Great Crested Grebe
31) Merlin - NEW FOR LIFE LIST!
32) Snipe
33) Pochard
34) Buzzard
35) Dunnock
36) Long-tailed Duck - NEW FOR LIFE LIST!
37) Goldeneye
38) Pintail
39) Bittern
40) Shelduck
41) Mallard
42) Lapwing
43) Great Tit
44) Blue Tit
45) Long-tailed Tit
46) Barnacle Goose

My year list for 2012 comes to 85.

Read More

15th January 2012 - Pulborough Brooks and Arundel WWT

Outside of Norfolk, this has to be one of the best birding day trips I've been on, as you will shortly see!  We were looking to go somewhere a little different from our usual haunts but not *too* far away, so I did some research and settled on Pulborough Brooks.  They'd had a couple of interesting birds recently and it looked like a lovely reserve to visit.  On the walk the day before we'd mentioned our trip to someone local to the reserve and he pointed out that another place that we'd been meaning to visit, Arundel WWT, was only 15 minutes away, so we decided to try and get both into the trip.  Upon arriving at Pulborough, we smiled happily at the plethora of Blue Tits on the feeders outside and wandered into the visitor centre to get our wristbands.  Before we even managed to get to the desk, we got a lifer for both of us - an adorable Water Rail, wandering round about 2 metres away from the excellent viewing windows.  It took a long time to drag Stuart away, but a promise of a possible Firecrest eventually lured him.  An excitable short walk later, stopping at every single little noise in the hope of spotting the elusive tiny bird eventually led to a group of people staring up into tall conifers at a small bird flitting around.  A quick look through the binos confirmed a Goldcrest sighting, but two incoming birds caused a lot of excitement, which increased when Stuart confirmed Firecrests!  The low sun quickly ended our quest for more Firecrests, so we moved on down towards Jupp's view.  On the way, I spotted my second ever Treecreeper adorably scrambling up the tree.  Nothing much different was to be seen from Jupp's view or the Nettley's hide, mainly Lapwings and various ducks with a lovely Grey Heron standing proudly in the middle.  We then popped round to Hanger view and that all changed.  Flocks of Fieldfare (a lifer for both of us!) and Redwing were passing by in front of us and we got some wonderful views through the scope.  Two very helpful RSPB volunteers were also there to spot some great birds - a shy Snipe, hovering Kestrel overhead and - the best bit - a pair of Bullfinch!  Whilst the woman next to me was distinctly unimpressed as she gets them every day in her garden, I have been waiting ever since I started birding to see a Bullfinch and to see a male/female pair together with excellent lighting was amazing.  On our way back to the visitor centre we popped into the West Mead hide for what was to be a great stop off as we heard a woman at the end of the hide announce a Pink-footed Goose.  We also zoomed in on the Greylag Geese we had seen earlier and realised that the white patch round the beak meant, in fact, they were White-fronted Geese.  Pink-footed had only been seen in a flock in the distance in Norfolk, so it was great to see one on the ground not too far away and the White-fronted was a lifer for the both of us.

After being somewhat disappointed at the cream teas being advertised - double cream?! - we headed to Arundel WWT.  After having high hopes because of how excellent London WWT is, we were severely disappointed.  Apart from a near encounter with a Water Vole (one day, one day) and what seemed to be most of England's population of Pheasants, the viewing at Arundel was lacking.  It is a lovely site; I really enjoyed walking around it and indeed we made a friend, a lovely photographer from Kingston, so I will go back, possibly at a more opportune time for the birds.  We did get very close to another pair of Bullfinch on the way out though, so it was not all in vain.  I'd like to recommend the pub we went for dinner in too, The Red Lion Inn at Shoreham.  Lovely atmosphere, interesting selection of beers and great food - we recommend the Bannoffee Roulade!

	Pulborough Brooks	Arundel WWT
1	Robin	Mute Swan
2	Song Thrush	Coot
3	Blue Tit	Moorhen
4	Chaffinch	Tufted Duck
5	Pied Wagtail	Mallard
6	Water Rail – NEW FOR LIFE LIST!	Shelduck
7	Blackbird	Snipe
8	Dunnock	Pheasant
9	House Sparrow	Teal
10	Goldcrest	Lapwing
11	Firecrest – NEW FOR LIFE LIST!	Black-headed Gull
12	Rook	Canada Goose
13	Carrion Crow	Wood Pigeon
14	Wigeon	Bullfinch
15	Great Tit	Robin
16	Treecreeper	Long-tailed Tit
17	Mallard	Blue Tit
18	Lapwing	Great Tit
19	Pintail	Dunnock
20	Shelduck	Jackdaw
21	Mute Swan
22	Grey Heron
23	Teal
24	Black-headed Gull
25	Shoveler
26	Wren
27	Moorhen
28	Canada Goose
29	Fieldfare – NEW FOR LIFE LIST!
30	Snipe
31	Cormorant
32	Bullfinch – NEW FOR LIFE LIST!
33	Kestrel
34	Green Woodpecker
35	Redwing
36	Starling
37	Long-tailed Tit
38	White-fronted Goose - NEW FOR LIFE LIST!
39	Magpie
40	Pink-footed Goose
41	Greylag Goose

My year list for 2012 comes to 71.

Read More