Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, I have not updated my blog in an eternity. I have resolved to start again in 2011.
It is a shame that 2010 was missed, as it was a particularly productive Autumn for birds - both new for the garden and repeat records of scarce birds. However, I have noted the highlights below:
A productive period began on August 17th, whilst having a morning cup of tea. At 8:35, looking out of the lounge window, I noticed a line of large brown waders flying fairly low north up the valley - there were 8 birds in a broken V - like an inverted tick. Through bins I could easily make out fairly long evenly down curved bills, but not much on plumage. They had a languid flight style with slowish wing beats, all of which pointed to Curlew rather than Whimbrel, a new garden tick!
5 days later, on August 22nd, a hoped for garden tick, came at 3:20pm. A high flying raptor moving in a steady SSW direction is always worth a look, as it suggests a migrating bird rather than a local Common Buzzard or Red Kite. The bins revealed an obvious Osprey in steady glide. The long wings, long hand and spread fingers together with a shortish square cut tail were diagnostic. The white body and throat were also obvious. Lack of obvious black greater coverts below suggested a juvenile, but the bird was fairly high, so I cannot be certain. The bird only gave an occasional shallow flap, but otherwise was in constant glide. It actually flew directly overhead and at this stage the wings could be seen to be held forward at the carpals in typical gliding posture.
Another 5 days passed, then on August 27th I sat down at lunchtime and looked at the back garden - there was a slight break in the weather and a bit of blue sky actually appeared fleetingly. A large flock of tits was moving through the silver birches and oak at the bottom of the garden and into the beech wood that lies adjacent to the property. It comprised Blue, Great, Coal and Long-tailed Tits in quite large numbers, but little else could be picked out other than 2 Willow Warblers and a Nuthatch. At 12:30pm, a female/immature type Pied Flycatcher landed in my field of view in a silver birch and promptly disappeared. Slightly disbelieving, I watched the spot and luckily it reappeared and I was able to watch it for a couple of minutes before it moved off with the flock through the wood. This emulates a similar occurrence from 2004 when a fem/imm type Pied Fly was seen in the same silver birch before moving off through the wood in a similar manner.
I had to wait only 6 days for the next highlight. On September 2nd, post school pick-up and kids teas, I sat down and looked out of the lounge window. Almost immediately I picked up a distant raptor circling over the valley to the east. It had elevated wings, but looked very dark with a pale head through bins. Suspecting a Marsh Harrier, I dashed for my scope but predictably, the bird disappeared and I thought I had blown my chance. However, about 10 minutes later at 16:40, what was presumably the same bird appeared again distantly to the east above 2 Red Kites. Through the scope it was obviously a female/immature type Marsh Harrier. I watched it glide WNW over the north end of the valley, circling a couple of times before disappearing from view. It was a very dark brown looking bird, although the long squarish ended tail appeared reddish in good light, pointing to adult female. However, the pale gold colouring appeared to be restricted to the head and the hand also looked quite narrow, coupled with the overall darkness of the bird means that it was probably a juvenile - the upper wing was never visible. The yellow legs also stood out at long range contrasting with the dark brown under body. This is my 4th consecutive year to have Marsh Harrier over the valley, so far all between August 26th and September 21st and also all mid-afternoon birds.
And then another 6 days to September 8th - I found a presumed female Marsh Harrier at 5:50pm circling the east side of the valley heading generally north, but in no particular hurry - it had a reddish tail and plain brown upper wing with no obvious sign of pale tipped greater coverts. Over the next 40 minutes it remained on view on and off in the area to the north, where a newly cut corn field is partially viewable from my house. There were obviously some small animal corpses available and the Harrier was seen twice on the deck in the company of 2 Common Buzzards (to which it deferred) whilst a corpse was picked at. Otherwise it was quartering the field in late afternoon sunshine - I tried a record shot at great distance which was trully awful! (see above) I last saw it at 6:30pm, but it might well have stayed longer, as my view is quite restricted.
I had to wait until October 16th for the next garden tick. I looked out of the window at 9am to be greeted by a falcon attacking a small bird fairly high over the north end of the valley. My immediate thought was a late Hobby chasing a late hirundine, which in itself is quite unusual. However, when viewed through bins, I could see that it was a Merlin attacking a Skylark - wholly unexpected! I can honestly say that I have never seen anything like it, it was like watching an aeroplane dog fight - the Merlin made 5 or 6 attempts to catch the Skylark in a very tight area, manouvering up, down and around, once adopting the more usual thrush-like wing flaps of attack. They disappeared off south, so I don't know if the attack was successful. I can only summize that as this is not how I would normally expect to see a Merlin chasing larks i.e. at 100ft rather than over a field, that the Merlin was on a southerly migration route through the valley and chanced upon a Skylark migrating West (as they do in small numbers at this time of year), which produced this opportunistic assault. Due to light conditions, I could not discern much on plumage other than it looked brownish, so I would suggest that it was a female/immature type. This represents the 10th species of raptor that I have seen in the valley, and from the house. (11 if you include the escaped Red-tailed Hawk that was around for a few months in 2005/6 and actually bathed in the pond one morning! (see above))
2010 has been a bumper year for both Waxwings and Mealy Redpolls, that have appeared in large numbers since the autumn. On the morning of November 24th, I was able to add Mealy Redpoll to the garden list - it was feeding in my garden silver birch with a single Lesser Redpoll and c10 Goldfinches. It stood out immediately due to its noticeably larger size, approaching Goldfinch and its overall paleness compared to the Lesser Redpoll. The undersides were generally pale whitish with streaking appearing to be restricted to the flanks. There was a pale pink wash to the upper breast. The wing coverts/scaps were brown. but the central back was white with black streaks. The single wing bar was white. Unfortunately I didn’t get a good view of the rump, but it appeared whitish. It was only feeding for a couple of minutes before the flock flew off - Redpolls only tend to feed sporadically in my birches.
On December 5th, the other mass invader of the autumn, Waxwing was also added to the garden list, when at 9am, a single bird alighted at the top of a neighbour’s line of cherry trees – a favoured spot for resting birds. Unfortunately it only stayed for a couple of minutes before flying off low north. I watched the general area for a further 30 minutes, but there was no further sign. This was slightly unexpected due to the absence of many berry bearing trees in the area, but very welcome!
On December 26th, my biggest ever flock of Redpolls comprising 12 birds, was observed feeding in the silver birches for about 30 minutes before flying off south. One of the birds in this flock again stood out as being Mealy. Over the period I was able to scrutinise it as it fed and was fairly still, albeit the flock being spooked a few times, but they kept coming back to feed. I shan't describe the bird in detail, but it was probably a female or first winter bird, because although the rump/upper tail coverts was difficult to see when feeding, when it flew to different positions it revealed an obvious pale grey rather than white rump.
So a pretty spectacular avian autmun/winter. Roll on 2011!
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