Bulgaria - the start

Where to start? I’ve just been on a four day trip to Bulgaria, and I’ve been blown away by both quantity and quality. Unless you’ve been there, or you birded in the UK in the late 1890’s, you will have no concept of what the birding there is like. Nightingales seemingly outnumber Robins by about 1000 to 1, Shrikes are common birds, Golden Orioles live in towns, and Bee-eaters are a familiar sight. If you step outside you are assaulted by a wave of sound – “Prruuuk” intermingles with the screams of Swifts, the chattering of Swallows, the fluting of Orioles, and Marsh Warblers add a background of seemingly everything else. If you have not been, you need to. Mind-blowing birding.

I could do a trip report I suppose, but I’ll leave that to Bradders, it’s more his thing. I’m just going to do my usual day by day roundup, and slap a load of photos up. And I mean a load. Although the trip was a birding trip, I can never resist pointing a lens at things, and when Dick’s head wasn’t in the way, or Mo’s elbow in my face (cheers guys!), I did manage to fire off a few shots, some of which please me a great deal. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t be doing more of this, but it seems that it’s extremely difficult to actually make a living doing so, and so for now I remain in Canary Wharf, living the dream. And to think I have more Pine Grosbeak photos as well....

This was a four day trip, although it required a day travelling – with the terribly-named Wizzair, with their fetching pinky-mauve planes. At least it wasn’t Wizz-bang-Air I suppose, and the fact that I am typing this suggests that they succeeded in their primary task which was getting me there and back in one piece. This they did, though in truth I cannot recommend them as the spacing between the seats is such that you need to amputate your legs at the knee in order to experience anything like comfort, and it’s a three hour flight. Oh hang on, this is sounding like a trip report.....

Anyway, the dream team of Mo, Dick, Bradders jr and I arrived and were met at the airport by Dancho, our amiable and knowledgeable guide/driver/translator. And beer purchaser. A word at this point to the uninitiated; Bulgarian been is extremely good, and extremely cheap. And, as we found out, extremely abundant. People with less self-control than I could have quickly and easily reached the “three sheets to the wind” stage with no visible damage to their wallets. The damage to early morning birding would have been irreparable though, so I made sure to keep within my limits. Although I am very very young, far too young to talk about ageing, I have to say that this year I have begun to notice the adverse affects of alcohol far more. It could be that I am drinking far more, but I can’t really remember. Certainly the urge to reach for the corkscrew is much higher now that I am working again. Still no varifocals though, so I can’t really complain.

Where was I? Bulgaria, and the airport? And Dancho. Yes, that’s it. Dancho was our guide, via a company called Neophron, which is the tourism arm of the BSPB. We wouldn’t usually use a guide, but they were highly recommended (and we now know why!), and Bulgaria with it’s Cyrillic alphabet seemed sufficiently foreign (for want of a better word) to warrant it. So we opted for a tour, complete with minibus, hotels, food, and Dancho. At the risk of straying into trip report territory, this cost approximately 80 quid a day. Under our own steam, we likely could have done this cheaper, but to save what? 30 quid a day, 20? Neophron made it easy, stress-free (apart from Dave’s exposure compensation issues), and without a doubt got us birds that we could not have got by ourselves, so an excellent decision.

So, dump cases at hotel, retrieve optics, go birding on the shore of the Black Sea in the remaining light, and see Bee-eaters almost immediately. Here is one. Even if you only read this blog for domestic tips and dietary information, you cannot fail to be impressed with Bee-eaters. OK, so a few of the East London massive managed to twitch one in Norfolk this weekend, and well done them, but they had to drive for hours to see a miserable-looking bird sitting on a wire, depressed at its massive screw-up and wondering where all its friends were. Meanwhile I enjoyed multiple Bee-eaters at point blank range, flying over my head calling constantly. This is what birding abroad gets you, would that I could do it more frequently!

Some time ago I set up a photo website as I realised that without one the blog might just become a series of photos. That’s probably happened anyway, but in an effort to at least retain some semblance of writing, I’m going to try and keep it on the light side (yeah right - Ed.). So if you want to see more photos of Bee-eaters, please visit Justbirdphotos.com, where I have put a selection up. There is no obligation to purchase, but if just 100,000 of you do, I can leave Canary Wharf forever. Just think how much more blogging I could do? Hopefully that’s compelling. Errr......

We also saw this.....more later.

Hello, I am a Shrike



Hello.
I am a Shrike.
Specifically, I am a Red-backed Shrike.
One of twenty-trillion Red-backed Shrikes that live in Bulgaria.
The bloke who writes this blog saw most of us.
Are you ready?



Down at the Alex

I didn't really go anywhere this weekend, the idea being to thrash the patch and snaffle a few ticks from Nick as he wasn't around. The patch, unfortunately, had different ideas and was obstinately quiet. No doubt it will liven up when I'm not here next weekend and he is. Instead I devoted time to teaching small apprentices what Lesser Whitethroats and other common birds sound like, and to taking photos of a Heron on the Alex. This makes for a really dull post, so that's exactly what you're getting.

However, there is good news on the horizon. I am, as mentioned in passing recently, off to Bulgaria. I've never been anywhere where I don't even know the alphabet, let alone read a menu. It could be quite entertaining as I point at stuff. Hopefully the stuff is all going to be brightly coloured, have feathers, and be extremely close to me. I've heard that it's how many places in Europe used to be before intensive farming took over, and that there are birds everywhere. And not just any birds either. Things like Red-backed Shrike should be common, and I've just seen a link which shows Bee-eaters and Rollers. I could cope with those I think. I'm only going for four full days of birding, but a report I found on the web of a similar trip at a similar time of year netted something like 160 species. The general premise of the trip is a lot of quality birding coupled with extremely cheap beer. I think someone also mentioned a stack of Western Pal ticks, that's fine, whatever. It's probably true; some of the birds on offer will undoubtedly be ones I've never seen before. But if someone tries to pull me away from a photogenic Shrike (of any kind) in order to go and see a Pygmy Cormorant, it might be the last thing they ever do. Fellow travellers, take note!!

Attaboy!



 My son has been spending a lot of time birding with me recently. Let's face it, it's May, and if he wants to see me.... I jest, he is actually quite getting into it. Or that's what I tell myself anyway. In truth, and like many small boys, he just wants to be like his dad. Poor kid, he will learn. Already at school they must think he is a complete freak.

"So what did you do at the weekend?"

Normal child: I played on my Nintendo and watched eighteen hours of Telly.
Muffin: I did some skywatching on the patch, went to Lakenheath Fen, got loads of ticks including self-found Cuckoo, then saw a Black-winged Stilt, and then twitched a Tawny Pipit at Landguard. What is Telly?

I figure that if he comes out with me for long enough, then possibly, just possibly, it will spark a lifelong interest. And if not in birds, then perhaps in photography. He has been practically ripping the camera out of my hands recently - unlike birding, this is something I have definitely not shoved down his throat. I am of course very keen to teach him exposure theory, and how an SLR works, but he has been the driving force here. And here are some of the results. Ok, so he's a lucky boy in that he is able to use really quite a nice camera, but having good kit is in no way related to being able to take a good photo. And before anyone suggests that I set it all up and he just walked up to the tripod and pressed the shutter button, absolutely not. These were all hand held using a small lens, and he employed fieldcraft to get closer to the subjects, including keeping a tree between him and the Wheatear until the last minute, staying crouched and so on. Really impressed, especially given the setup weighs close on 3kg, and he is only eight. The post-processing is all mine, but I did nothing different versus what I might have done with my own shots. Admittedly we delete a few more, but that's all part of the process, and he has improved hugely in just a few weeks.

Please click on this to enlarge it and see just how nice it is. The catchlight in the eye is fantastic. And it's a Wheatear of course....

So now I have a birding and photography companion. When Mrs L asks what my family contribution will be over the weekend, I can just say that I am altruistically taking Muffin out so that he can pursue his hobbies. In other words, I have carte blanche to go birding whenever I want. Does it get any better?

Boris Island? Oh please....

This mayoral election was a tough one. Vote for a scruffy, mildly amusing guy with a keen interest in conservation, or for a hypocritical tax-dodging quasi-communist. Neither was a particularly appealing choice for someone like me. How I voted is irrelevant, in the very first interview I read with the plummy Mr Johnson, he spent the first half of it banging on about the airport in the Thames Estuary, and calling on the government to be brave. Genius. Hopefully the decision to go ahead does not lie with Boris, if it did the pile-drivers would have already started. I don't need to bleat on here about quite how catestrophic this would be for birds, there are many places where that information is available, and with scientific back-up. What I can say is that Boris, for all his undoubted intelligence, must be out of his mind. Wildlife in London is already stretched to the very limit, the Thames corridor especially so. To slap an airport, and a bloody massive one at that, in an area of critical importance for vast numbers of wintering birds is morally repugnant.

Do we actually need more planes? We have Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, City. Five airports - isn't that enough? It seems to me that the sky is constantly full of planes, pretty much from dawn until dusk. In fact this morning on Wanstead Flats I probably saw more planes than birds. That we need yet more planes seems odd, I'd argue for fewer, but if we do, then please, not in the Estuary. And not at Lydd either. In fact I can't think of anywhere I'd like it to go really, or at least not anywhere where there isn't anything currently. Demolishing Hounslow and expanding Heathrow would be fine, albeit quite traumatic for the residents of Hounslow.

Anyway, must dash, got to start packing as I'm flying to Bulgaria next week.

Peanuts at Canary Wharf

My first spot of birding in Canary Wharf for a while, and an early start too - once I had confirmed Wanstead was dead. This gave me a full hour in the concrete birding mecca, and I was determined to see a Swift, there have been loads around lately. I should have known better. When I used to bird East India Dock, Swift was a very difficult one to get, so why should Canary Wharf, just around the corner, be any better? Well it wasn't. But I did score heavily, and but for some more powerful bins and a bit more string, could have done even better.

I was minding my own business down at the eastern end of the patch, watching a couple, then three, Common Terns, and scanning the sky for distant specs when a Peregrine zoomed by - not in a stoop but properly motoring nonetheless. It arced back around and then I could see a second bird. I wondered for a moment if it was a male Peregrine and I had first seen the female, but when it banked it became a Hobby. My views were brief, the Peregrine was most unhappy with it's presence, and it disappeared off towards the river. Remarkably it came back again a few minutes later, and again was seen off by the Peregrine, though less determinedly this time - not that it needed to, I think it had got the message - this time it went off towards Bow Creek and didn't come back. I wonder what it was doing in Canary Wharf? There is literally nothing for it to eat, so my assumption is a bird still on passage. A fine patch tick though, never managed one at the Dock that I can recall. Shame that I had no camera, I might have got them both in one shot, they were definitely both in the bins at the same time.

I persevered from my watchpoint, logging an annoyingly unidentifiable finch flock of seven birds, two Starlings, two unidentified small passerines near Billingsgate that may have been Sparrows but I will never know, and worst of all, a distant Wader heading towards Bow Creek from the river that had I been forced to slap a name on it I might have called it a Green Sandpiper. Definitely had flashes of white, contrasting with dark, but frankly it could have been any number of things at that range. I may bring my little travel scope next time, it could prove invaluable in securing the packet of peanuts I seem to working far too hard for. 

Other notable sightings were a pair of Tufted Duck actually from my office window (a sub-list, if you will) and the Greylags are still knocking about. So, having updated the challenge scores, it's 34 plays 36, with good 'ol CW lagging behind. A financial megatropolis it might be, a birding mega hotspot it most definitely it is not. But that makes it that much more satisfying when you do actually get something. I wonder if I'll get to 40?

Random Coot

Lucky Landguard

Being a saddo lister, I am able to tell you what birds I've seen where. Partly this is notebooks, but mostly it's the most amazing spreadsheet ever. Have you heard of Pivot Tables? They're great, I mean really great. A quick couple of clicks, and I can produce this:

Landguard NR, Suffolk			5
	Hoopoe		1
		15-Apr-09	1
	Arctic warbler		1
		2-Sep-09	1
	Booted Warbler		1
		16-Oct-11	1
	Short-toed Treecreeper		1
		25-Mar-11	1
	Tawny Pipit		1
		6-May-12	1

Those are all the rare birds I've seen at Landguard, and every single one of them - yes, all five - were lifers. Not a single one was any trouble at all. I bowled up and there they were, straight onto my list, spectacularly easily. I also keep a dip list, not that I dip very often, but it's always nice to reminisce. Landguard has no entries on the dip list. Every time I've been for a bird, it's always still been there, and I've always seen it, and seen it really well. So yesterday, even though I was nearly a hundred miles away in Cambridgeshire, I knew that if I went, I'd score the Tawny Pipit. Dipping was out of the question, no petrol would be wasted. And that's exactly what happened - Muffin and I arrived, bailed out of the car, walked calmly to the point, and immediately saw a Tawny Pipit.


I have similar luck at and around Minsmere. Hang on a sec. Click, click.

Minsmere RSPB, Suffolk			4
	Glossy Ibis		1
		9-Oct-11	1
	Purple Heron		1
		24-May-07	1
	Roseate Tern		3
		21-Jun-09	3
	Audouin's Gull		1
		9-May-11	1

Dunwich, Suffolk			2
	King Eider		1
		17-Oct-10	1
	Thrush Nightingale		1
		7-Jun-08	1

Westleton Heath, Suffolk			2
	Great Grey Shrike		1
		17-Oct-10	1
	Lesser Kestrel		1
		29-Mar-10	1

It's never quite as nailed on as Landguard, for instance I recall a Spectacled Warbler dip, but my record here is still pretty good, and I'm always pretty confident of seeing what I set off to see. It's harder work though - although most were straightforward, the Thrush Nightingale required overnighting in the car followed by three hours walking around in a small circle, most of it in the pouring rain, for about a thirty second view. The less said about the Lesser Kestrel twitch the better, and the Audouin's Gull gave me a mild heart attack by flying off half an hour before I arrived, before doing the decent thing and returning to the scrape just as I arrived on the beach.

Anyway, enough stats. For now. I also do quite well at Dungeness. In fact, I do quite well everywhere, but I think that of the places I've been several times, only Landguard has a 100% unblemished record.

Today was a family day, and what better family activity is there than enforced birding disguised as a walk? Sheppey was the destination of choice, centered around lunch at the Harty Ferry Inn. But before the family were allowed into the pub, the were marched to the hides at Elmley Marshes, where yet another two Black-winged Stilts awaited us. Mrs L was delighted to get a tick, but the girls didn't even look!

The main problem is that the hides are miles away, and so small children lose interest well before half way. Much better is the entrance track to the reserve, where the kids can hang out of the window and observe Lapwings, Redshanks and others at point blank range. Today we had great views of these, as well as of Yellow Wagtails and cute Rabbits. A quick stop at Capel Fleet produced Peregrine and the ubiquitous Marsh Harriers, and a more prolongued stop at the Harty Ferry Inn produced both food and beer.