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Weekly birding round-up: 31 Mar - 6 Apr 2020

We’re nothing if not an adaptable species, and it’s astonishing how quickly we come to accept whatever the new normal is, particularly when we’re all in it together.

That said, I can’t be alone in finding considerable distraction and solace in nature at the moment – as a birder, having the tempo of spring migration picking up means I can never be entirely sure what’s around the corner. For me this week, just a Pied Wagtail - but who knows what’s coming. Birders further south did rather better in recent days…

 

White-tailed Eagles continued to dominate the news, literally and figuratively this week, as sightings poured in daily across England. It seems as if this is part of a small irruption, as increased numbers were also being reported in recent days in the Low Countries.

Actually quantifying how many are involved in a British context is tricky with such readily mobile birds. Certainly, however, there were some hotspots, and perhaps none more so than in Kent – a bird (or birds) being seen at Worth Marshes on 31st; New Romney on 1st; Ramsgate, Sandwich, Deal, Herne Bay and Blean on 2nd; and Worth on 2nd, where two were reported, with two confirmed over Deal later in the day. Perhaps the best record of all comes in the footage of wildlife cameraman Richard Taylor-Jones on 31st - a monstrous flyby alongside a Ruddy Shelduck. Had both come from the Continent?

Certainly some of the sightings related to the Isle of Wight birds – the satellite data revealing the paths they’d taken. Some, but not all…

Running through the rest of our weekly records in chronological order – on 31st widely separated sightings came from Howick (Northumberland) and Andover (Hampshire), with a probable that day in the otherwise rather quiet airspace at Stansted Airport (Essex). On 1st, one was reported from Craster (Northumberland), with the day’s other sighting involving two birds found over Aylesbury (Buckinghamshire) by none other than Dan Forder – he who had added the species to his house list only the previous week.

One remained at Wilstone reservoir (Hertfordshire) until 2nd, having been present there since 30th; further sightings on 2nd came in the form of two birds in Hertfordshire over Hemel Hempstead, from Grafham Water (Cambridgeshire), Whitchurch (Hampshire), and a possible over Houghton Regis Pits (Bedfordshire).

On 3rd, birds were logged in Norfolk over Thorpe St Andrew and Colney; near Sewell (Bedfordshire); and over Orphir (Orkney). Another Orcadian sighting came on 4th from Stromness, with further English birds noted over Louth and Grimsby (Lincolnshire), Catisfield and Wickham (Hampshire), Guisborough (Cleveland), Hull (East Yorkshire), and near Wenhaston (Suffolk). Another Suffolk sighting came on 6th from Bungay.

While sightings appeared to be diminishing in the past couple of days, one would have to think that a few of these big beauties are still out there. We can surely live in a hope of a chance encounter for a while yet. And if you do see one, and get a photograph of it, White-tailed Eagle reintroduction supremo Roy Dennis would love to hear about it.

 

Remaining in Scilly to the point where we can reasonably start to call it, if not resident, then certainly long-staying, the male Lesser Kestrel was still on St Mary’s throughout this week.

To date, our longest staying latterday bird was that which spent nine days on Scilly on 13th-21st May 2002 – clearly there’s something about St Mary’s that’s to their liking once they fetch up there. If we delve back into the annals of history, there’s the adult male that reportedly lasted 109 days in Co.Dublin between early November 1890 and 17th February 1891 – at which point it was shot. It’s now at the National Museum in Dublin – a most unlikely record given both the dates and the duration of the bird’s stay.

 

Hats off this week to Mashuq Ahmad in Cornwall for what’s surely one of the best window ticks of the year, never mind under the current circumstances – a first-winter American Herring Gull in Penzance on 3rd-4th.

Not just any American Herring Gull, but the very selfsame one that’s been popping out of the woodwork along the south coast in recent weeks – seen previously in Devon and Dorset, and identifiable as such on account of some distinctive feather damage.

 

Finally for our headlines, news came out of Dungeness (Kent) on 2nd of a Short-toed Treecreeper. I made the assumption that this was surely the bird last seen in the shingle vastness on 20th March; but the Obs blog is describing it as their second individual of the spring, and who am I to argue with that judgement?

We’ve said it before, but there’s simply nowhere to touch Dunge for these subtle birds. Though surely anyone encountering a Treecreeper in their garden or on their walk in Kent should be giving it a hard second look and listen.

 

As we anticipated last week, sea-watching isn’t going to be high on anyone’s exercise agenda right now. Nevertheless, the tenor of this section of the weekly proceedings will change as the spring unfolds and those birders who live in coastal locales stand a chance of noticing skuas passing by or the lumpen form of banana-billed divers sitting offshore on calm days.

Our sole White-billed Diver for now was the one seen this week off Papa Westray (Orkney) on 4th-6th.

 

Those southerlies that kissed England over the end of the week will, surely, augur more than just an upturn in Hoopoes and the first Alpine Swift of the autumn – early April being the classic time for some overshooting long-legged beasties.

Two such appeared to have penetrated far to the north on 4th where, on Benbecula (Western Isles), two Glossy Ibises were noted at Loch Bailfinlay, with at least one remaining there on 6th. These were presaged by two further birds reported heading north over Frinton-on-Sea (Essex) on 1st; and bookended by two more possibles near Bracknell (Berkshire) on 6th.

In Norfolk, the adult Purple Heron remained at Cley NWT on 31st.

Eyes straining to the skies hoping for a wandering White-tailed Eagle this week found plenty of further large, looming forms passing overhead - Common Cranes remained on the move in recent days.

Sightings from Cambridgeshire are almost as de rigueur these days as the resident Norfolk birds, so it’s little surprise that the week was marked by a dozen birds at Nene Washes and two more over Sutton Gault. Down in Suffolk, two were noted on 1st over Cattawade and then, on 2nd, a duo were seen over Leiston. Inland, on 2nd, a single bird was seen over Bletchley (Buckinghamshire) and Leighton Buzzard (Bedfordshire). On 3rd, a probable bird passed over Willenhall (West Midlands).

Moving north, in Lincolnshire two were noted over Quadring on 3rd, while in Lancashire on 2nd two were reported from Clayton-le-Woods. In North Yorkshire, a duo had passed over Crossgates on 1st; and a single bird was logged over Filey and Long Nab on 4th. On 5th, a singleton was seen over Swindon (Wiltshire); one was seen over Bicester (Oxfordshire); one over Earlsdon (Warwickshire); and two heading northwest over St Abb’s Head (Borders).

Finally, on 5th, a Spotted Crake was found at Marshside RSPB (Lancashire).

 

What we may have lacked in terms of volume - Common Scoters notwithstanding – amongst our honkers and quackers this week, we certainly continued to make up for in terms of variety, with a colourful array of species still hanging around.

In East Yorkshire the Black Brant remained hanging around Kilnsea on 31st-4th – while, on 30th, two birds were noted there. On 5th another was seen in Hampshire off Milton Common.

Two settled Green-winged Teals hung around on offshore islands this week – the birds still present, respectively, on South Uist (Western Isles) on 31st still, and North Ronaldsay (Orkney) on 4th still. In England, the recent bird remained at Southwold (Suffolk) on 1st, while one was seen on 4th in Lancashire at Newton Marsh.

Back to Scotland and the isles, in Shetland a presumed hybrid Eurasian x Green-winged Teal was found by British Birds editor Roger Riddington at Virkie on 31st – with the exception of the scapular stripe that betrayed the probable Eurasian Teal influence, it looked the part of the Nearctic counterpart species.

(For birders presently exploring for the first time how it feels to work from home, this is a timely juncture to mention an ornithological job opportunity that may be of interest – Roger’s retiring from his editorial role at BB, and the journal is looking for a replacement editor. You’ve got until 30th April to apply, and no boss looking over your shoulder while you polish up your CV during working hours…)

Back to the quackers, an American Wigeon was found on 5th at Flixton GPs (Suffolk).

What’s presumably the young drake Blue-winged Teal that’s overwintered in Devon at Man Sands was found, on 6th, at Exminster Marshes RSPB.

The drake Ferruginous Duck remained in Wolverhampton (West Midlands) on 1st-3rd.

The long-staying drake

Ring-necked Duck at Priory CP (Bedfordshire) was still a more or less daily fixture on 31st-6th.

The recent Surf Scoter-hotspot of Embo (Highland) retained a bird on 31st, whilst the regular drake was once more noted off Musselburgh (Lothian) on 4th-6th.

Which brings us, neatly, back to where we began, with Common Scoters. If last week was the week when almost every birder might have felt they stood a decent chance of adding a migrating Black Redstart to their house list, this week the scales fell from their eyes (or rather, their ears) as to the potential passing, unseen, overhead in the darkness. Common Scoters, streaming east at night, appeared on the radar of our consciousness on 31st, not least in Hadfield (Derbyshire) where at least 21 birds were noted in the space of an hour in the early part of the night.

A nation’s birders took to throwing open the windows or standing in their gardens in the nights to come, straining their hearing for the fluting, piping calls of Common Scoters - until this week, for all but the most dedicated noc-mig converts, an unlikely and unthinkable addition to anyone’s house list. No longer – and while standing outside all night long may not appeal, the equipment to record flight calls whilst we sleep can be surprisingly affordable. The hours of darkness have secrets to unlock, and there are both house lists and county bird datasets to augment.

 

Very slim pickings indeed on the shorebirds front – if it weren’t for the Dotterel flying through Ballyrickard (Co.Kerry) on 5th, we’d have drawn a blank this week.

Further interest came on 5th in the form of a Grey Phalarope reported on a pond near Saltfleetby (Lincolnshire); while that was a slightly nebulous piece of news, more unequivocal wader fare came as the week wore on and numbers of Whimbrels on the move north began to be logged, including inland – another one to listen out for from the garden or on your daily walk in the week to come.

 

New bird of the week in Cornwall aside, this week was mostly all about the white-wingers in gull-world, though those pesky southerly winds will be hastening their departure for cooler climes any day now.

Numbers of Glaucous Gulls remained steady, if subdued, just about scraping into double figures. Two birds on North Uist (Western Isles) on 31st still were the only multiple sighting – the balance concerned singletons, on Lewis (Western Isles) still on 31st; in St Ives (Cornwall) on 31st and 4th-6th; at Pyewipe (Lincolnshire) again on 31st and 6th; at Whitburn (Co.Durham) on 1st; on Tiree (Argyll & Bute) still on 2nd; and in Highland on 4th-6th at Scrabster and on 4th at Dunnet Bay. On 4th one was present on Unst (Shetland); on 5th, one was seen on Skye (Highland); and, on 6th, back in Shetland one was present on Yell.

Iceland Gulls fared a little better, though only a little. Shetland’s recent settled bird on Yell remained until 4th, joined by a second juvenile there on 4th-6th; and two remained on Skye (Highland) on 1st-5th. Otherwise our sightings all concerned single birds – on 31st at St Ives (Cornwall), Whitburn CP (Co.Durham) and over the allotments at Hazelrigg (Northumberland); on 1st and again on 3rd at Wide Open (Northumberland); on 1st-6th in Newlyn harbour (Cornwall) still; and on 1st in Co.Fermanagh at Lower Lough Erne. On 2nd Northumberland popped up again with a bird noted at East Holywell. On 3rd sightings came from Derryinver Pier (Co.Galway) and Fail (Ayrshire), with the Fail bird still present on 5th; Ayrshire also accounting for one on 4th at Troon. Further birds on 4th were seen at Toab (Shetland), Flamborough (East Yorkshire), and back in Northumberland at Big Waters. The pace picked up a little on 5th with birds logged at Doxford Park (Co.Durham), Drift reservoir (Cornwall), Grimsby (Lincolnshire), Crosby (Merseyside), and Accrington (Lancashire).

The week closed with a possible adult Ring-billed Gull on the beach at Dumpton Gap on 6th – if confirmed, that would be a tremendous Kent bird. Past sightings in the county are best described as sporadic and brief so, current circumstances notwithstanding, we shouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if this one is never heard of again.

 

As the headlines attest, White-tailed Eagles continued to have a severe case of wanderlust this week, with sightings cropping up all over once more – and so too Ospreys.

While one would have to conclude that the latter are more a case of increased observer coverage and awareness, the former certainly seem to be having a bit of a moment. Maybe this year is the one when some of the annual sightings of putative Booted Eagles will actually be accompanied by a photo. It’s been a few years since the wandering Irish and British individual that found no favour with the authorities. We’re surely overdue one now that passes muster…

All of which sets us up nicely to raise our eyebrows at the adult Lanner seen at Breydon Water (Norfolk) on the inauspicious date of April 1st.

An unconfirmed report of a Black Kite seen flying over Margate Cemetery (Kent) on 4th had more of a feel-good factor about it – and there will doubtless be more in the days to come.

So too, one would hope, with Red-footed Falcon - one was reported on 5th near Sancreed (Cornwall).

On 5th a Rough-legged Buzzard was seen in Essex over Little Clacton; and another was reported from near Akeley (Buckinghamshire) on 5th also.

 

Checking in first this week with our longstanding rarity familiars, the young male Black-throated Thrush remained in Grimsby (Lincolnshire) on 31st-2nd, but wasn’t reported thereafter.

In Cheshire, meanwhile, sightings of the maurus Siberian Stonechat at Ashton’s Flash became a little more sporadic than of late, but it was still present there until 5th at least.

With southerlies this week came, predictably, more Hoopoes - one at Ballydonegan (Co.Cork) on 31st one from the same break in the weather that brought another to Co.Waterford the previous week and then, on 4th, a fresh small surge of arrivals comprised individuals in a garden in Goring (West Sussex) and, in Cornwall, sightings at Porthgwarra and Downderry. On 5th Cornwall scored another in a Helston garden and one more in Sennen, while another was found on St Mary’s (Scilly) on 5th-6th. On 6th one made a brief pitstop in Wareham (Dorset), before flying on to pastures new, and further Irish sightings came from Co.Cork at Ballycotton and in a Ballynacarriga garden.

A possible Golden Oriole, heard only, was noted on St Mary’s (Scilly) on 5th.

A Wryneck was reported from Thropton (Northumberland) on 6th.

Serins too were on the move – one over Ventor (Isle of Wight) on 1st was followed by a sighting at Dungeness (Kent) again on 2nd, and two Dorset birds on 4th – one on Portland, and the other in song at Lodmoor RSPB. On 6th another was noted in flight at Hollesley (Suffolk), and one was heard at Climping (West Sussex).

An Alpine Swift was seen just outside Leigh (Dorset) on 5th; on 6th, another was found in Howth (Co.Dublin).

On 5th, Titchfield Haven NNR (Hampshire) scored a Red-rumped Swallow; this a shot across the bows for 6th, when a flurry of sightings came from the north-east coast – birds logged in North Yorkshire at Filey, Hunmanby Gap and Scarborough, and in East Yorkshire at Spurn.

This springtime promise was leavened with a chilly dose of winter in the form of a Great Grey Shrike seen on 4th still in the Brogborough Lake area of Bedfordshire, and a burst of Waxwing records – some 300 birds in all being seen, with a handful of double figure counts made amongst them. The week’s largest flock were 65 birds noted at Balerno (Lothian) on 3rd, with 60 in Aberdeen (Aberdeenshire) on 5th and 50 at Cults (Aberdeenshire) on 31st still a close second; 30 birds were seen in Angus at Kirriemuir on 5th, and 30 on 6th in Lothian at Bathgate. South of the border, 20 were seen in Co.Durham at South Shields on 31st; and 12 were logged in Ogden (West Yorkshire) on 1st.

Also hinting at a winter that’s almost a memory now, bar the odd frosty morning, the Yellow-browed Warbler was once again noted at Mitcham (London) on 2nd. There will be other scarce and rare warblers from much closer to home any day or week now…

Finally, a Rose-coloured Starling was found in Ireland at Limerick (Co.Limerick) on 3rd.

 

Overseas news remains very much on the back burner as national lockdowns continue to limit the amount of observer coverage of their respective countries. Biggest news of the week is only slightly belated and, technically speaking, not very big at all – the Belgian province of Flemish Brabant landed a Pygmy Owl at Kapelle-op-den-Bos on 25th.

To date, this is by some margin the best lockdown garden bird found in the Western Palearctic – the finder, Karel Helsen, found the bird stunned on his lawn after it flew into one of his windows. Initially he thought he’d got a Little Owl on his hands but, once his photos emerged online, it transpired that his stupefied bird was Flanders’ first Pygmy Owl. Shortly after he’d found the bird, the local tits noticed it too and began mobbing it. Trailing a comet tail of enraged Paridae it flew off, never to be seen again.

Closer to home, the American Royal Tern was again seen on Guernsey in the Channel Islands on 1st.

 

In Dorset, Portland’s Large Tortoiseshell - or one or two of them – put in appearances again this week on 31st and 4th-5th; another was seen on the south coast in Truro (Cornwall) on 4th; and, further east, another in Brighton (East Sussex) on 5th and Seaford (East Sussex) on 6th, both of the latter sightings in gardens. I can’t help but daydream about how flipping lovely it would be to see this magnificent insect regularly and reliably back on the wing across southern Britain.

While nobody’s certain why it became extinct here in the first place, the ravages of Dutch Elm disease certainly won’t have helped it, with elms being a principal foodplant of Large Tortoiseshell larvae. Now is a timely moment to remember Dr David Herling, a champion of all things elm, who passed away recently after a battle with cancer. He devoted his free time to the dream of restoring elm trees to our landscape – his website is a fascinating tribute to his practical work in championing disease-resistant trees and, if you’re so minded, serves as a mine of information about those varieties one could plant and reasonably hope to grow to full-sized, mature trees in the fullness of time – perhaps helping out the Large Tortoiseshells of years to come.

If that’s a long-term aspiration, I’m hearing of other insect-related news this week that’s going to deliver immediately – a surge of interest in moth-trapping, and increasing numbers of birders and other interested folk ordering moth-traps in recent days with an eye to seeing what they can find in their back gardens in the weeks and months to come.

Just like submitting your bird records to Birdtrack or your county recorder, back garden moth records can help generate valuable data about the distribution and status of these often overlooked and under-appreciated insects. It’s also worth noting that there’s a genuine frisson of excitement every time one lifts the lid on a trap to see what’s come in overnight… a bit like stepping outside looking for migrant birds, you never know if the big one is about to reveal itself to you – but you’ve got to be in it to win it, and that means obtaining a moth trap.

My venerable Skinner trap came, years ago, from Anglian Lepidopterist Supplies ( https://www.angleps.com/ ) – I’m sure there are other vendors, but ALS are a first port of call for many wanting to get a natural history fix without leaving the boundaries of their own back garden. Many counties have dedicated moth groups – the Suffolk website being a particularly excellent portal to all things moth-related to get you started and help you out with your first steps into mothing on their links page.

Good luck!

 

Another week passes, and we’ve had a near-miss with Iberian Chiffchaff. I was so sure one would turn up on those southerlies…

The new week begins with the wind shifting towards the west, but that’s not going to be a significant impediment to north-bound migrants, surely. Not least towards the weekend when the forecasts, as they stand, suggest there may be a period of south-easterlies kissing the English east coast.

With 22 previous records for the coming week of Subalpine Warblers of various flavours, there’s a chance one might squeak in and coincide with some lucky soul’s daily walk.

Failing that, there are surely more Red-rumped Swallows waiting in the wings…

 

Jon Dunn
7 April 2020

 

Many thanks to all this week's contributors for your photos and videos

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