Song Thrushes

I have no idea if I have ever been aware of this before - probably - but each autumn there seems to be a period when Song Thrushes dramatically increase in number before they seem to melt away again. In late winter I become aware of their presence again as they start to sing at dusk and in the early mornings, but for large parts of the year there just aren't any. Or at least not that I see.

From Scilly over 16 years ago!

One morning this week I counted 21 from the Vizmig point, including two flocks of six. Flocks! Normally I see single birds, so I had first assumed they had to be Redwing, but when one or two of the group called I worked it out. I still couldn't quite believe I had seen over 20 before I headed off for work though - amazing. Later on Bob reported that his overnight nocmig recording had 64 Song Thrush calls on it which is extraordinary. 

This has been the pattern for most of the week, albeit not the numbers of Tuesday. I missed all the Ring Ouzels, a minumum of six on the Flats on Monday, but on Wednesday I finally added Fieldfare for the year after a lacklustre approach earlier in the year. They're now around in small numbers, or at least moving through, and there are many more Redwings arriving.

I like this time of year. It's not about rarities, it's just about enjoying the spectacle of migration. I counted over 170 Jackdaw today, and Finches are moving in larger numbers now, mostly Chaffinch or that annoyingly silent Finch sp., but also smaller numbers of Redpoll, Goldfinch, Greenfinch and Linnet. I've missed a few Brambling too, and a Short-eared Owl, but my early start this morning was repaid by a tootling Woodlark over the Flats. Lovely, and all right on my doorstep.

And just like that....

And just like that I stopped writing. I always find it strange how it happens, as if there is magic switch that has been flipped. One I don't have access to. I'm fine, pootling along, working a lot, seeing very few birds. Two exciting things happened since I last stopped by here. 

One, I went to Latvia. You may or may not remember a post from last year about Latvia and how I'd seen no birds there and wanted to put that right. In that post I mentioned I was going to Latvia in April. I didn't, it got cancelled. The airline mucked about with flight times so much that I think it ended up being a four hour trip. So instead I went last weekend. The weather was a bit pants, other than one brief period of sunshire just after I arrived on Saturday afternoon it then turned excessively windy and quite wet which is not ideal for birding. But I still managed to see a fair bit in my quick visit, and have got a bit of a feel for it. A write up will follow in due course, I don't have the capacity just now.

Two, I took a day off work to go and taste wine. I would normally never take time off to go drinking, but this was too good to miss. My name was drawn out of hat to attend The Wine Society's autumn press tasting. As the name suggests this is where their new list for the second half of the year is presented to wine journalists, critics, writers, bloggers, influencers and.....me. I attended not in any of these capacities but as a lucky member of TWS (as it is known). I got to chat to wine buyers and members of the organisation, something that in retrospect I wish I'd done more of, and generally just immerse myself in a side of the wine and spirits business that I would never normally see. And, if I so chose, to taste through 120 different wines. I saw this a challenge.

Spot the famous wine journo...

I taste wine all the time, as in I drink it all the time. I go to wine-themed dinners, I go to small tasting events based around a grape variety or a country, or even a vintage. I have been known to travel to wine regions and visit producers. But this was the first professional tasting I'd been to and I had no idea what to expect. One thing I did know was that I wanted to taste as many as possible, all of them if I could. To see if I could manage it, to see if this is something I enjoyed, to try and see things from a different point of view to how I normally interact with wine.

It does not take a genius to work out that even a tiny sip of 120 wines will get you absolutely sozzled. I spat everything out and walked out stone cold sober - that's what the professionals will do and that's what I did too - an iron will is needed. An iron palate is also needed, it is amazing what swilling so much wine around your mouth does to your taste buds. It destroys them is what it does, or in my case it made me extraordinarily sensitive to sweetness, such that by the end even dry red wines felt ridiculously sweet. But I did manage to taste everything, and I also managed to write notes on every single one that actually made sense the next day when I started typing them up. I won't subject you to them, it ended up being a 5000 word piece, the length of a mini dissertation. 

Overall a very educational day indeed, I have no ideas how the pros do it, it was exhausting. A marathon - four hours means two minutes per wine. Think about that the next time you read something from Jancis in the FT!

Ticking over

Blogging has faded, I have little to say so I say nothing. We have been here before, this is just the way it goes. There is just about enough for a couple of paragraphs, or I hope so anyway, let's see how it goes. What can I muster?

First up is a day trip I did to Germany a while back. I flew to Hannover after work and holed up in a hotel near the Haupt Bahnhof. Early the following morning I got a train to a town to the west of the city called Wunstorf, and from there caught a one-a-day bus further east to the village of Winzlar. From there I walked to the Steinhuder Meer, a large lake that from my research had appeared very birdy. Indeed it was, and by the time I had to catch the one-a-day-in-the-other-direction bus back I had seen over 80 species including Black Woodpecker, Little Stint, Wood Sandpiper, Spotted Redshank and Common Crane. It was excellent, even though in the half light I had taken the wrong track which had subsequently run out at just the stage where retracing my footsteps would have been really annoying. I ploughed on, through ditch and over fence, eventually regaining the right route but not before getting totally soaked in sodden vegetation. Take my socks off and wring them out soaked. It was like Northumberland all over again and made the rest of the morning quite trying, with shoes that weighed the same as bricks and a distinct squelch every time I took a step.

Despite this initial setback I had a lovely morning in full-on birding mode. The catalyst for the trip was an irritatingly poor German eBird list that I felt that I needed to rectify. I have fallen out of the habit of these European day trips and had forgotten how fun - and exhausting - they are. In the afternoon I had a late lunch and wandered around the old town for a bit before flying home. All very pleasant and relaxing, though 34,000 steps took their toll.

Closer to home I've seen a Pied Flycatcher and Med Gull on Wanstead Flats, and in Fife I ticked Glossy Ibis for Scotland. In the course of trying to find a Garganey that same evening I got ticked. I did not find it until the following morning in the shower, and half asleep and wondering what the funny little blob on my stomach was managed to break it off leaving the head embedded - it only came out today, just over a week later. Nice. It is now red and inflamed but that'll just be a local infection rather than anything nastier. Still annoying though, and wasn't on my radar for Fife at all. Now I know. Other than that it was a good weekend with plenty of migrants including Pied Flycatcher, Spotted Flycatcher, Redstart, Spotted Redshank, the Garganey, and another good seawatch at Pettycur that was notable for passerines rather than monster seabirds - a big movement of Swallows, Meadow Pipit, Siskin and Redpoll. These four species were everywhere I went, and Redpoll was a tick for Letham Pools, and was Kingfisher - 103. Won't be long before they're back in Wanstead I thought, and sure enough Bob had some Siskin earlier this week, and this morning I did some vizmig out on the Flats and saw 195 Swallow and 177 Meadow Pipit. Quite a decent count for round here, but I still feel that me and autumn proper have yet to get acquainted. A couple more weeks remain to put that right.

Twenty years Part II

Well well. Am I on a roll or what? For reasons I don't fully understand (although I suspect laziness) I've been spending more time skywatching from the balcony recently. Of course what I should have been doing is getting my arse in gear super early and getting out onto Wanstead Flats at first light but I am finding I can't quite get myself over the line. Instead I've been waking up at around 6am, having a bit of a potter, making a coffee, and then sauntering over to the battlements for a squiz at the sky. All nice and relaxed.

This takes me right back to what I found to be one of the most enjoyable features of lockdown, and which somehow I've dropped along the way. Skywatching. Back then I added 15 new species in two years to my at-that-time 18 year old garden list, but until earlier this year I hadn't added a single new species since May 2021. That changed with the singing Nightingale in April of this year, and last month I reached my 100th species with Great White Egret, as recounted here. Mission accomplished, and part of me thought that was that. Not so!

With news from the less feckless out giving it their all on Wanstead Flats that there was a Nuthatch in Long Wood, a highly unusual occurence, I wondered out loud whether there could be a movement happening and might I finally get one on my garden list? About 15 minutes later that is exactly what happened. As usual the Parakeets were drowning most other things out, but from over towards the southern end of Bush Wood I thought I heard a faint call. Immediately I was on maximum alert, every last percent of my hearing focussed on that one horizon, hands cupped behind my ears. Had I imagined it? I had not! It called again several times, the double chuitt one. GET IN! 

Twenty years. Nearly twenty-one. Nuthatch had been high on my list of possibilities, but I had assumed it would be a foraging bird moving through the gardens in winter. Given James' news from the Flats perhaps this is post-breeding dispersal? Equally the birds are resident there and in many ways I am surprised never to have heard one in all of my many skywatching sessions. Either way it is now on the list. I wonder what will be next?

Nuthatch - probably took this over ten years ago

An ideal day

Of course part of me regrets not going to Norfolk to see the Black-winged Kite. Only a very very small part though. I would have made it, it chilled out in the same dead tree for most of the day, but I couldn't bring myself to bother. The time wasn't right. One day it will be and there will be no stopping me, but yesterday was not that day. 

I went birding in the morning. Slow going, the same birds lingering. A steady stream of Swallows on both Saturday and Sunday perhaps the highlight, we can go months without seeing a single hirundine. The same two Redstarts were in the same Hawthorn, it was perhaps just the Whinchat that had changed over at some point. 

Back home I rushed around doing a million things. Busy busy. The biggest thing on my to-do list involved getting up a ladder and cleaning the inside of the conservatory roof which had been bugging me for a while. Lots of mould, lots of stains, lots of spiders. I only nearly fell off once - it would have been a disaster as an incredibly spiky plant would have broken my fall. As it was it merely pierced my arm in multiple places. What's that red stuff on the window? Oh, my blood. Nice. I cleaned that up too. There are a few places that I've not been able to reach but I'll get there in round two, and it looks ever so much better already and for now I'm pretty happy with my efforts. After that I mowed what is left of the grass, had a shower, and clean and fresh mosied over to the fridge to see what was going on.

Fresh anchovies was what was going on. I gutted them - there is not a great deal within an anchovie - and gave them a light coating of olive oil, nothing more.  Also in the fridge were several bottles of wine, including a Tempier rosé that I'd put in earlier thinking that it might be the last chance this year. In a stroke of genius however I'd also put a bottle of Tempier white in there, and it was this I reached for now. 

I grilled the anchovies over charcoal and we ate outside. Wanstead in the first week of September could have been the South of France in May. Occasionally, just very occasionally, I get things very very right indeed and this was one of those moments. The Tempier white was an inspired choice, the combination was terrific. It had just the right amount of body to go with the white meat and just the right amount of acidity to cut through the oily skin, with a delicious sreak of lemon and something herbal going on. Along with some dolmades and olives, and then a cheese board featuring Rove des Garrigues, we had the most simple and wonderful lunch I can remember for a long time. We were transported. This set me up perfectly for an afternoon nap, after which I relit the barbeque and we did it all over again with some chicken I had marinated during my earlier whirlwind of domesticity. No additions to my British list, but I'll likely remember today for a lot longer.

Officially autumn

I think of September as autumn and not summer. Birds do too, although for them the return journey often starts in July. It has been a great summer, there are lots of detractors but I for one love the warmth. The vast majority of my plants revel in hot weather, and it is also ideal for drinking Rosé. Less ideal for what passes for grass here at Chateau L, and I expect that life is pretty tough for many of the birds I so enjoy. One species of something loses out, another steps in. I had my best ever growing season in terms of my plants putting out new leaves, I saw far fewer breeding Whitethroat. These two things probably have some measure of correlation. Nothing is ever perfect but this is the beauty of having lots of different hobbies. One fades, another gains in prominence.

As summer has waned plants have taken more of a back seat and birding has come back to the fore. I've been out quite a lot and a number of the expected migrants have fallen. I actually found Tree Pipit on the same day I published my last post on local birding, but I'd written it a couple of days earlier when in full unstoppable flow and set it up to go live a bit later. A week or so after that I woke up in the night, full of Syrah, to hear a very vocal Tawny Owl somewhere in the neighbourhood. I've been saving that one. And then more recently than that, this weekend I managed to connect with the Pied Flycatcher found earlier in the week by Nick who is unconstrained by commuting and offices. All going according to plan in other words, though I think I might have been in Germany when Tony found a Sedge Warbler. Getting a little late for those though I did have one last week in Fife so maybe there is still time. The good news is that the weather is now more unsettled, and that means that birds may get dropped in. I am here for a while now and hope to cash in, though not at the expense of getting soaked.

Onwards and upwards. 104. Average is what I am all about.

A Wanstead Pied Flycatcher from yesteryear (2015)

More Fife Seawatching

This is NOT what you want at Fife Ness!

I remained in Fife for the Bank Holiday Monday, part of a three day plan to cash in on a seabird bonanza. The opening salvo, as described here, had gone really rather well, and whilst I spent the Sunday birding locally in mid Fife and just pottering around the house, on Monday I was chomping at the bit again. The weather had other ideas. I had popped into Fife Ness in the morning to find it totally dead - clear and sunny weather, barely a breath of wind. Half an hour was all I gave it before concluding that there was nothing to be gained by hanging around. I had a pootle around Kilminning, a Wheatear and late-ish Swift my reward, before deciding that Largo Bay was in fact the place to be. 

I was not wrong, it was superb. As ever I placed myself on Ruddon's Point which allows you to scope both the expanse of Largo Bay as well as the beach. It was low tide and carpeted in Waders and Gulls - nothing special but I picked out a few Bar-tailed Godwit and enjoyed the Sanderling. The water was almost but not quite like glass, with Auks everywhere and large rafts of Eider. It was shirt sleeves weather and supremely pleasant even if there were no stand out birds, it's still a little early for the Divers and Grebes. Away from the water the best bird was a Treecreeper and a site tick, hanging out in the belt of pines on the way to the point. I went home for lunch a happy man.

As good as the Bridled Tern and Cory's Shearwater were, they were both found by other birders. Of course I do not mind riding on the coat tails of others one little bit, but I don't deny that when it comes to seawatching it is intensely satisfying to work it out for yourself. So in the afternoon I went down to Pettycur Harbour, a very good spot for seawatching in the Fife. It is approximately opposite Leith (indeed you can scope the Royal Yacht Britannia) and juts out towards the island of Inchkeith exactly where the Forth narrows. You're low to the water down at the harbour, but the views out are to where birds feed are excellent, and often you find birds come around the corner between Inchkeith and the viewing spot before heading back out, affording good and close views if you are lucky. The previous days had seen Cory's Shearwater, lots of Skuas, and a Sabine's Gull.

I set up the scope in the lower car park and started scanning, initially hard work in the bright sunshine, but the weather decided to do me a favour and as the afternoon passed the light got better and better. The first Skua I saw was a Bonxie headed east and out, passing in front of the island and disappearing around the point. I never saw it again, but interest soon returned in the form of two pale phase Arctic Skua that came around the corner ridiculously close in and then gave a great show chasing (together) and unfortunate Common Tern that happened to be be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Common Terns are remarkably agile, but so are Skuas, it's just extraordinary to watch. A short while after this a nice gingery juvenile Pom pitched up in exactly the same space. It didn't chase anything at this point, just cruised leisurely around. I don't have a vast amount of experience with this species, but I get better each time, and when it flew directly away I got a real sense of the bulkiness of the body that the Arctic Skuas hadn't shown at all. 

By this time the channel had become much busier with a massive flock of Gannets, Gulls and Terns swirling around to the west of Inchkeith. Feeding was constant, and of course in came the Skuas. They were impossible to keep track of - at one stage I got to eight Arctics, including three pale phase birds that I presumed two of were the same as I'd seen earlier. There could have been more than this though, as birds kept wheeling off and either coming closer to me - including the two pale phase birds that stuck together and at one stage pitched down on the water - or heading further out into the Forth where I lost them. The Pom I spotted only once in the fray but it was extremely busy and it could have been there the whole time. This activity probably continued for well over an hour, but then came a conundrum. In the melee a smaller Skua stood out, not only for it's size versus a Tern versus an Arctic Skua versus a Tern (too many versus?), but because of its flight action and habit of almost hovering on high held fast-beating wings before dipping onto the water briefly. Dainty. In short it felt more like a Tern but was clearly a Skua - a pale belly contrasting with greyish uppers and a very pale head. I only saw it chase other birds perhaps twice, and there were none of the sustained and dogged acrobatics of the Arctic Skuas. Was this a Long-tailed Skua? Everything about it felt different, how I wished that there had been someone competent there to verify it. I made notes as best I could in order to try and work it out later.

And later on I did indeed get some help. The following day another birder reported a juvenile Long-tailed Skua from the same spot and so I got in touch to hear about his experience of this bird and described my own. It sounded good. Later that day I then did some internet research - videos of LTS are very limited as it happens - as well as 'phoned a friend'. Piecing together all of these things has left me feeling quite confident, though whether I have enough to get this accepted I have no idea. I'll try though. All of which means that in my mind at least this was a four Skua seawatch. I've done this before down at Pendeen many years ago, but I expect back then I was put onto most of the birds and so by myself at Pettycur last Monday just felt better and more satisfying. No Sab's or Great Shearwaters, they'll have to wait for another time, but my weekend looking at the sea had been nothing short of amazing.