This should bring me back up to date....
The weekend before last (20th/21st) was a quiet one:
Saturday was a damp and dismal day at Chobham with a Coal Tit, Parus ater, and a glimpse of a Roe deer being the highlights. On Sunday I joined the LNHS at Crane Park Island LNR which was underwhelmingly advertised as "looking under some old wood piles". Instead it turned out to be a nice combination of disciplines with insects, fungi, plants and birds all taken into account. I was introduced to the Hairy-footed Bee, Anthophora plumipes, of which several individuals were drifting around as well as the Nursery Web Spider, Pisaura mirabilis, and several bees of the Andrena genus. I heard my first Chiff-chaff, Phylloscopus collybita, of the Spring and we saw a kingfisher, Alcedo atthis, up close for a change. There was plenty of red dead-nettle, sweet violet and shepherd's purse pulling in all the spring bees and flys. Finally a couple of Carabid beetles were picked up of the ground but apart from one maybe being a pterostichus sp. we were in the dark. It was nice to be out looking for inverts again and the weather held up nicely all day.
Saturday 27th, however, was a beaut'. Shoddy time-keeping and buses failed me; and I caused both myself and my friend Ben to miss the train to Minsmere. We were both bummed and I was feeling very guilty. I suggested Rainham as an alternative and hoped bleakly that it'd somehow match up to Minsmere expectations. After getting lost trying to find Fenchurch St station (most hidden station in central London maybe?) and arriving at Rainham to find the reserve still closed, things did not look good. We decided to head down the Thames-side and see what turned up while we waited. The hoped for tree or water pippit turned into a mippit perching on a bush and I started to think we might be looking at a miserable, ruined day. Then an angel in olive, carrying a scope turned up and said (I paraphrase slightly here) "Lo, fear not! For there is a ring ouzel yonder". And after a short walk eyeballing every blackbird we saw, we spotted a small black bird skulking in a very broad hawthorn. We approached slowly, needing to get closer anyway to move to the other end of the track, but this was enough to scare it down into hiding in a ditch away from us. We continued over to another three birders with scopes to a decent distant viewing point that looked down the length of the dry ditch. The ring ouzel was happily pulling up worms and giving us amazing views. After watching this for a while we saw that the draw-bridge was down at the reserve visitor centre and we would be able to go in. Still feeling bad about "Missed-mere" I was hoping to spot a water vole for Ben as he hadn't seen one for years! Keeping my ears keen I was twitching at every ripple and splash but they always turned out to be coots. Then the rushes next to me rustled slightly out of sync of the wind or my leg brushing past. I paused and listened carefully and realised it was a water vole right next to us hiding under a small arch of Phragmites reeds. Standing slightly to the side we could watch it nibble through a small larder it had collected before it eventually wound its way through the reeds and plopped into the water. From there on we saw marsh frogs which I shamefully mis-ID'd as common frogs (I'd never seen marsh frogs out of the water!), a pregnant lizard sunning itself on a black pipe and a glaucous gull out on the western marsh. The weather started to turn so we headed back round the last half, saw a peregrine in the pylons and snipe and golden plover in the large northern scrapes. We got back inside just in time for the rain, while waiting it out we heard reports of sedge warbler and sub-alpine warbler reported inside the reserve and as soon as rain stopped we went back out. No luck with either but we did manage to see a Little Ringed Plover near the northern scrapes again. We headed back in and decided on one last walk out along the Thames embankment to look for water pipit. We went beyond the car park and started to see a lot of linnet when a pinkish-brown-fronted "maybe pipit" flew past. Following it round the corner it turned out to be a male wheatear. The spring migrant bonanza is working its magic! Making our way back down the embankment towards Purfleet I saw that the top of a fence post in the reeds was a bit taller than it ought to be. It was a Short-Eared Owl relaxing on the fence post, presumably waiting for it go get dim enough not to be mobbed by crows. Neither of us had had a decent look at one before and it posed for us brilliantly for ages with that awesome angry stare. A well-rescued day with some fantastic wildlife!
(PS Ben managed to cadge a lift to Minsmere the next day anyway and caught the Lesser Kestrel, the lucky git)
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Elmley Marshes - 13/03/09
I'm trying to figure out a balance in my writing. The last few have been un-naturally "blokey" so I've probably gone too far the other way this time into Pseud's Corner wankery. Fuck it, no one actually reads this...
On Saturday (2½ weeks ago) I took a trip to RSPB Elmley Marshes on the Isle of Sheppey. It was fantastic. I've only visited a couple of times before as the round trip from Swale station to the furthest hide and back is about 18 miles.
I arrived at Swale station after a dull train journey and walked over the old bridge. A barge bellowed in from the east and the whole bridge lifted up to make way. It's surprising to see a rail line on a moveable bridge but here was just such an example. Anyway, back to the birds, high tide was in so no short-cutting under the bridge, instead it was time to use the "safari driveway" into the reserve. Elmley sells itself partly on the long road into the reserve surrounded by grazing marsh and shallow floods.
It compares this to a safari and encourages the visitor to remain within their car to avoid startling the wildlife and to use it much like a hide. The driveway is also a public footpath and my only realistic way in to the reserve when the tide is high. It's a little disconcerting that a conservation society is advising that I use a more environmentally damaging mode of transport.
I carried on and soon had house-sparrows and starlings all around me on the rooftops of barns and farmhouses. Out on the fields ahead were reasonably large flocks of winter thrush, mostly fieldfare with a few redwing. Skylark song opened up from the air above, hard to spot initially and once you have them they're still small, flickering silhouettes in your binoculars. Following them down they sing till the last minute then pull a quick low lateral flight, an audible equivalent to insect flash colours; throwing off a potential predator by switching from conspicuous to cryptic in the blink of an eye. Even when you've found them, followed them down, followed their attempt to trick you and they land in short, cropped grass; these plain, brown birds manage to disappear into the green.
Giving up I decided to practice my poor field observation skills and count something. 150+ wigeon flew off rather quickly, mocking my attempts. By this time a few people had driven past, noticeably speeding up a bit to get beyond the annoying pedestrian scaring off the birds. Rounding the first bend in the track I approached where most of the Lapwing were displaying and the majority of roadside ponds were, all of which were a bit drab. Last year around this time the ponds were carpeted in white Water Crows-Foot flowers. The lapwing were very relaxed letting me relatively near and displaying right over my head. Banking side to side and sweeping low they came near enough that I could hear the wind in their feathers which made a zipping sound with each stroke. I've not heard this before with large flocks in winter even when they've circled low. The use of mechanical sounds generated by feathers is well known amongst birds in general but relatively unexplored from species to species. Perhaps this builds into the display repertoire of the lapwing? It was audible from over 10m away and occured with more than one bird so I don't think it was just an aberrant or partially moulted individual.
Further up the road, my vertical form scared a few hares out of their holts. Everything here is a little on the tame side. The lapwing don't panic and the hares only run a little bit and then wait and watch. There's a lot of grandiose talk of wild land and wilderness and so on and I'm going to be guilty of it too. But I think land like this is better termed "feral". It was once tamed and retains an uneasy co-existance with modern man. Half-wild, half-urban, relatively easy to photograph. A lens the size of a traffic cone protruded from the car in front as the hare was standing alert and photogenically only a few feet from the lucky photographer.
I walked straight through the car park into the main reserve. There is meant to be a pair of Little Owls in the oaks below the farm. I generally have bad luck with owls and hadn't even seen a little owl despite it supposedly being common. Up ahead a small group were scoping the oaks which was a good sign and sure enough, after a brief search there it was roosting on a fairly low branch. Hooray for a lifer! I seemed to be in for a lucky day with owls as a Barn Owl flew by beneath us for an excellent view as it tracked down to the embankment and headed west over the more abandoned marsh.
Carrying on to the hides I saw quite a lot of Marsh Harriers riding thermals in the distance, ringed plovers were laying claim to the small shingle isles in the scrapes and acting fiercely territorial and I felt I could confidently identify the knot roosting there amongst the grey plover. In the background 70+ avocets were milling around. I moved on after a while to the first Swale hide and carried on working on my wader ID skills (not much variety to really stretch anything here though). I was weighing up the pros and cons of moving on to the Spitend Point hide (a few more kilometres away) to look for Red Breasted Merganser when a pair came into view only ~50m from the hide! 2 lifers in one day; not bad going! I watched these two for quite some time and decided to head back while it was still light and the tide was low. Two pheasant cocks duked it out on the grass near where I'd seen the barn owl earlier, doing what looks a lot like a capoeira dance. Leaping and thrusting and dodging and never quite actually hitting each other.
Taking a different path directly towards the old bridge I bumped into the reserve and farm manager in his vegetable patch. He's quite an interesting guy. We chatted for a while about the owls (the Barn owls have declined heavily this year due to the snow), the Swale reserve further east on the island, finding a career in nature conservation and the outdoors and the presence of the rare "Pride of Kent" beetle, Emus hirtus, an awesome bee-mimicking rove beetle only found at Elmley and one other site on the Hoo peninsula. It seemed like he had his dream job, farm work is really tough but the land is beautiful if you have the inclination to appreciate it. A genuinely happy bloke.
After being pointed in the right direction I wandered on, large paint-brush strokes of starling flocks flew over the trees and a kestrel and yet more marsh harriers flew by. The walk back was otherwise uneventful, I got under the bridge without hitting quicksand and crossed the Swale. Then a pale shape drifted from between the new bridge's pillars and a barn owl turned up! Talk about getting lucky. It seemed oblivious to me in the semi-darkness and hovered over a patch only 10m from me. The train rolled in and sent the owl to the far side of the field, so I hopped on and finished a good day's birding.
On Saturday (2½ weeks ago) I took a trip to RSPB Elmley Marshes on the Isle of Sheppey. It was fantastic. I've only visited a couple of times before as the round trip from Swale station to the furthest hide and back is about 18 miles.
I arrived at Swale station after a dull train journey and walked over the old bridge. A barge bellowed in from the east and the whole bridge lifted up to make way. It's surprising to see a rail line on a moveable bridge but here was just such an example. Anyway, back to the birds, high tide was in so no short-cutting under the bridge, instead it was time to use the "safari driveway" into the reserve. Elmley sells itself partly on the long road into the reserve surrounded by grazing marsh and shallow floods.
It compares this to a safari and encourages the visitor to remain within their car to avoid startling the wildlife and to use it much like a hide. The driveway is also a public footpath and my only realistic way in to the reserve when the tide is high. It's a little disconcerting that a conservation society is advising that I use a more environmentally damaging mode of transport.
I carried on and soon had house-sparrows and starlings all around me on the rooftops of barns and farmhouses. Out on the fields ahead were reasonably large flocks of winter thrush, mostly fieldfare with a few redwing. Skylark song opened up from the air above, hard to spot initially and once you have them they're still small, flickering silhouettes in your binoculars. Following them down they sing till the last minute then pull a quick low lateral flight, an audible equivalent to insect flash colours; throwing off a potential predator by switching from conspicuous to cryptic in the blink of an eye. Even when you've found them, followed them down, followed their attempt to trick you and they land in short, cropped grass; these plain, brown birds manage to disappear into the green.
Giving up I decided to practice my poor field observation skills and count something. 150+ wigeon flew off rather quickly, mocking my attempts. By this time a few people had driven past, noticeably speeding up a bit to get beyond the annoying pedestrian scaring off the birds. Rounding the first bend in the track I approached where most of the Lapwing were displaying and the majority of roadside ponds were, all of which were a bit drab. Last year around this time the ponds were carpeted in white Water Crows-Foot flowers. The lapwing were very relaxed letting me relatively near and displaying right over my head. Banking side to side and sweeping low they came near enough that I could hear the wind in their feathers which made a zipping sound with each stroke. I've not heard this before with large flocks in winter even when they've circled low. The use of mechanical sounds generated by feathers is well known amongst birds in general but relatively unexplored from species to species. Perhaps this builds into the display repertoire of the lapwing? It was audible from over 10m away and occured with more than one bird so I don't think it was just an aberrant or partially moulted individual.
Further up the road, my vertical form scared a few hares out of their holts. Everything here is a little on the tame side. The lapwing don't panic and the hares only run a little bit and then wait and watch. There's a lot of grandiose talk of wild land and wilderness and so on and I'm going to be guilty of it too. But I think land like this is better termed "feral". It was once tamed and retains an uneasy co-existance with modern man. Half-wild, half-urban, relatively easy to photograph. A lens the size of a traffic cone protruded from the car in front as the hare was standing alert and photogenically only a few feet from the lucky photographer.
I walked straight through the car park into the main reserve. There is meant to be a pair of Little Owls in the oaks below the farm. I generally have bad luck with owls and hadn't even seen a little owl despite it supposedly being common. Up ahead a small group were scoping the oaks which was a good sign and sure enough, after a brief search there it was roosting on a fairly low branch. Hooray for a lifer! I seemed to be in for a lucky day with owls as a Barn Owl flew by beneath us for an excellent view as it tracked down to the embankment and headed west over the more abandoned marsh.
Carrying on to the hides I saw quite a lot of Marsh Harriers riding thermals in the distance, ringed plovers were laying claim to the small shingle isles in the scrapes and acting fiercely territorial and I felt I could confidently identify the knot roosting there amongst the grey plover. In the background 70+ avocets were milling around. I moved on after a while to the first Swale hide and carried on working on my wader ID skills (not much variety to really stretch anything here though). I was weighing up the pros and cons of moving on to the Spitend Point hide (a few more kilometres away) to look for Red Breasted Merganser when a pair came into view only ~50m from the hide! 2 lifers in one day; not bad going! I watched these two for quite some time and decided to head back while it was still light and the tide was low. Two pheasant cocks duked it out on the grass near where I'd seen the barn owl earlier, doing what looks a lot like a capoeira dance. Leaping and thrusting and dodging and never quite actually hitting each other.
Taking a different path directly towards the old bridge I bumped into the reserve and farm manager in his vegetable patch. He's quite an interesting guy. We chatted for a while about the owls (the Barn owls have declined heavily this year due to the snow), the Swale reserve further east on the island, finding a career in nature conservation and the outdoors and the presence of the rare "Pride of Kent" beetle, Emus hirtus, an awesome bee-mimicking rove beetle only found at Elmley and one other site on the Hoo peninsula. It seemed like he had his dream job, farm work is really tough but the land is beautiful if you have the inclination to appreciate it. A genuinely happy bloke.
After being pointed in the right direction I wandered on, large paint-brush strokes of starling flocks flew over the trees and a kestrel and yet more marsh harriers flew by. The walk back was otherwise uneventful, I got under the bridge without hitting quicksand and crossed the Swale. Then a pale shape drifted from between the new bridge's pillars and a barn owl turned up! Talk about getting lucky. It seemed oblivious to me in the semi-darkness and hovered over a patch only 10m from me. The train rolled in and sent the owl to the far side of the field, so I hopped on and finished a good day's birding.
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Northward Hill
The cormorant post is turning into the Duke Nukem Forever of ornithological blogging. So instead here's another "Places what I visited over the weekend" post.
I trekked out to Northward Hill on Saturday. The forecast was middling crap (drizzle, cloud, wind, rain showers etc) but I've come to ignore the forecast unless it's absolutely dire. Sure enough it was cold, overcast and windy. But it didn't rain all day and the clouds started to clear up leading to an all-round quality day!
I took the bus out to High Halstow and started the long walk out to the Thames bank. As soon as the roar of the bus disappeared behind the hedgerows the sound of singing courting skylarks started to come in from both fields either side of the track. So while the cold and the lack of flowers suggested spring was still hiding somewhere, these guys were cheering me up all the way down through the mud and ditch jumping to the tidal defenses. I found a useful bit of discarded closed-cell foam to sit on and set up the Aldi cheapo scope to check out all the waders I'd spend today trying to get to grips with. I carefully edged my head over the wall and crept the scope up onto it. The waders had moved into the middle of the bay making it hard to get close from any angle but directly across from me were hundreds if not thousands of teal and a few hundred wigeon. I've not actually seen so many teal together and generally not so many on a tidal section but there they were. I relaxed behind the wall and out of the wind for a while to let the tide bring the birds closer. I had a bite to eat and watched the clouds dissipate a bit. The day was getting more and more hopeful. A fox out on the grazing marshes drifted from grass-clump to grass-clump following its nose. It clearly caught something out there and had a good chew of frog, mouse or shrew. The sun shone for a while and the black section of my rucksack started to attract inverts. Nothing I could recognise but a small spider and a froghopper nymph were nice to see. I had a few more attempts at watching from the sea wall side and decided to loop round Egypt bay to the east end and marine crawl onto the embankment there with the scope on the mini-tripod. This was great; the topology of the mud there pushes the waders towards the bay as the tide rises and swept them towards me. I started using the scope on the nearest birds and worked through my books trying to finally work out the differences between knot and dunlin. There were 30ish shelduck, 1 turnstone, butt-loads of sanderling, a hundred or so grey plover, butt-loads of dunlin and I'm still not sure if I clapped eyes on any knot at all. I'll keep trying till I have it worked out properly. And I think it's about time I started taking notes and counting the birds.
The trip back featured a very close flying kestrel and a bargainous copy of Biology 5th Ed. by Campbell et al from Oxfam. If I get my act together and go for the life sciences degree with the OU I can see this being very useful. In the mean time it's fascinating reading anyway!
Oh and and (once I've uploaded it), here's a bit of footage of the fox:
Sunday was spent volunteering at Mitcham common; clearing openings in the mixed scrub and gorse encroaching upon the acid grassland growing there. Clearance conservation work is massively satisfying - destruction as creative process! I'll be interested to come by in the summer with the bug net and see what's living in the grasses.
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