last chance saloon

Patch tick, Waxwing - had 5 next to the village pond

Subalpine Warbler - Bempton

Seven-striped sprite ! at South Landing

After four weeks of westerlies the east finally struck back, a 'one way ticket' was purchased to the coast ! On arriving the wind was roaring from the east with driving rain ! Buckton produced 5 glorious Waxwings - a long awaiting new bird here and on day one the supporting cast consisted of 6 Snow Buntings, 2 Jack Snipe, Ring Ouzel and 55 Goldcrest.

After kicking around for several hours during which time the weather improved a quick dash to Bempton scored the Subalpine Warbler which was showing well in the sun on the sheltered side of a hedge and then the fab Pallas's Warbler at South Landing, Flamborough - with not another birder in sight !

With the wind set in the eastern quarter, the next few days should be good.

Falco columbarius

Guest appearance - Tony Blunden, taken on the Lizzard, Cornwall

RFFalcon -1st M underwing

Bedfordshire May 08

Amur horror

Mongolia 2004

Mongolia 2004

Whilst in Mongolia in 2004 I saw several Amur Falcons including visiting a colony of breeding birds nesting in the remains of a rookery in eastern Mongolia.

When a 1st summer male Red-footed Falcon turned up at Tophill Low in East Yorkshire in late September this year I sent a text to local birder Garry Taylor saying 'check it hasnt got white underwings'. Garry did go and see the bird but due to its state of moult the underwing could not be assessed fully. Over the next month I went close to Tophill Low several times on my way to Buckton but never called in due to the fact the bird was still being reported as a Red-footed Falcon. Case over....... well until recent pictures of the bird show that it now has white underwings and guess what... its gone !

1-0 to the Wednesday boys !

"Never felt more like singing the blues, Wednesday win and United lose !"

A big high on the downs !

Long before the first rays of day light, the cold pre-dawn air was full of calling Redwings, this was not unexpected as masses had pouring into the country the day before, being seen simultaneously by eastern observers on the ground and by radar observations. Overnight thousands of Redwings had 'seeeped' their way west, heading into a guiding westerly airflow.

With Five Knolls being a new site we didn't quite know what we were going to get but expectations were high. Matt Burgess, Rob Dazley and I joked about needing my clicker to keep count but that proved rather futile.

Even after only fifteen minutes of light it was obvious that a major passage was taking place, Redwings were sweeping up from the lights of Dunstable below, just rising over our view point before dropping over the other side and flying on towards Buckinghamshire in a direct westerly movement. The passage was constant and interspersed with regular flocks of Chaffinches speeding west on the same flight line.

From 0715hrs to 1030hrs the passage continued in this spectacular fashion with Fieldfares joining the party from 0830hrs. Most groups were around 25 birds strong but occassionally a large mixed species flock of around 400 birds sped past us at close range with Redwings still predominating.

The final tally for the morning was

Redwing 2873
Fieldfare 1323
Song Thrush 19
Chaffinch 850
Linnet 21
Siskin 5
Redpoll 2
Meadow Pipit 11
Starling 39
Wood Pigeon 409

A morning total of 5584 birds moved west with the peak window being 0830-0845hrs when 720 individuals went west. Redwings peaked between 0845-0900hrs with 353 individuals and Chaffinches between 0745-0800hrs with 185 individuals.

The Redwing and Chaffinch totals represent record counts for visible migration in Bedfordshire.

A great morning, even if at times we were swamped with the sheer number and speed of birds passing overhead and all around us!

Pimp your trig point !

The boys from Tottern..hoe (apologies to Ossie Ardiles)

Got up at 0540hrs this morning intent on another morning at Five Knolls, picked up Steve and Matt and all looked good - low cloud and SW wind.

When we got to 5K's though it all looked very much different - a fog out ! So we dropped a few hundred feet and went to nearby Totternhoe Knolls.

Visibility was much better and after a blank 20 minutes birds started to stream west at very close range. Between 0740 and 0820hrs we had 280 Chaffinch, 12 Reed Bunting, 18 Redpoll, 6 Meadow Pipit and 9 Linnet. The Chaffinch were all in much larger groups (averaging around 20 individulas per flock) than we had encountered at our previous local sites. A good morning was salvaged and as usual included a lot of fun with various impression including my Mr Miyagi from the film 'Karate Kid' and Matt creating a sketch from Little Britain involving Lou and Andy going vis migging - you had to be there ! - 'Yeh I know'.

Best make the most of it with winter round the corner ! (pics SB)

The BIG mig at Five Knolls

Matt looking North with Ivanhoe Beacon (Bucks) in the background

The new viewpoint on top of the hill at Five Knolls

The view to the east with Blows Downs mid horizon

The view to the west with Tottenhoe Knolls mid horizon

The view to the South along the Dunstable Downs ridge

As part of the Bedfordshire Bigmig day (a co-ordinated visible migration count by several observers covering a selection of sites) I did a bit of detective work and came up with a site that on a map looked promising, a pre-survey visit yesterday afternoon confirmed its promise.

So at 0630hrs Matt Burgess and I found ourselves stood at 220 metres above sea level on the highest ridge in Bedfordshire starring into the dawn and wondering just what the next few hours would bring. The fog that we had driven through and then left lower down as we climbed up the escarpment was evident all around. The new site is called Five Knolls for obvious reasons and sits on the northern edge of the Dunstable Downs escarpment and gives a brill all-round vista and most importantly faces north and east, the direction in which birds are travelling from.

Soon birds were zipping overhead in small flocks, Chaffinch, Meadow Pipit, Grey Wagtail, Linnet, more Chaffinch and even more Chaffinch....... the next two hours went pretty quick and then as if by magic the tap was turned off and it all dried up. Most of the birds are picked up first on flight calls, its then a case of getting your 'eye in' on the direction and height at which most flocks are travelling, once you have done that then its just a case of waiting for the next flock and trying to write down the last lot!

The results of the morning were 536 individuals of 16 species led by 223 Chaffinch. Now OK ... Chaffinch... one of the UK's commonest birds BUT these individuals are not from the UK - they are continental immigrants fresh in from crossing the English Channel and then moving on inland in a W/NW direction, many in fact winter in Ireland. How do we know this - well from ringing recoveries. A few Chaffinch cross the North Sea but most UK bound birds move from Scandinavia South into the Low Countries, from where they swing to the West and enter the UK. Large numbers have been doing this all week at places like Sandwich Bay and Dungeness so it was no real surprise that they were the commonest birds moving this morning and will be for the next few weeks.

A good morning and a site worth more attention. At county level 9 other sites were covered, all recording Chaffinch migration, so clearly birds were moving on a broad front. The highlight was a Hawfinch seen and heard over Kensworth by Rob Dazley and Jason Chapman... maybe nexttime !

Hot on the 'traill's' of a UK first

When news broke of an empidonax 'tyrant' flycatcher at Nanjizal, Cornwall on Wednesday lunch-time not only was this going to be a UK first but also a very tricky identification issue.

With the bird being 6-7 hours away, there simply wasn't enough time or light available to make a mad dash immediately. So we left at 10pm that night and drove through the night (well Jenny did most of it to be precise). We arrived at the designated field at Arden-sawah farm at 4am, I took a look upstairs, the sky was just packed with zillions of stars - a migrants charter ! We bedded down for a few hours sleep. Dawn was quite moody with black clouds sweeping in from the Atlantic low over the silhouetted farm house and lots of muffled voices from the ever increasing number of people emerging from their cars, all having driven over night.

Joining the throng of bleery eyed birders at the last place the bird had been seen the previous night it became apparent a good number of birders had made the journey. The light was gradually improving when suddenly everyone quickly moved to surround one person who had seen something that looked like it. Initial views were distant and the bird was very active feeding within a bank of vegetation and spent a few seconds either on full view or in flight and then hidden. Gradually it began showing well and the prominent features could be seen by all.

After relief came the euphoria, I glanced out to sea and tried to imagine American, well Cape May to be precise and the night sky I had experienced over there full of calling migrants. I then tried to imagine a whole gang of birds going the wrong way and catching a lift on a favourable jet stream and just flying for as long and as far as they could, because their lives depended upon it. Then this little ball of feathers, which by now was flying alone could see land - it pitched in to the first bushes it had seen for three whole days and little be known to it had just made history for its species - an avian miracle no less !! 7 hours in a car and little or no sleep was a very small price to pay to be in this birds presence.

On the previous few days a handful of other American landbirds had fallen on our shores with a Scarlet Tanager in Ireland, A Gray-cheeked Thrush in Dorset and several Buff-bellied 'American' Pipits. Talk about escaping the credit-crunch ! We watched the flycatcher and speculated exactly which species it might be - you see Alder and Willow flycatcher are virtually identical and are separated largely by vocalisations. The opinion was rather split and without anything further this little bird was never going to have its true identity known by the rest the world and properly documented in the record books.

Later that afternoon with the deft positioning of a mist net by the finder of the bird, the flycatcher got up from a bit of cover and flew some 150 metres straight into the net and the history books ! I bet if it could have uttered any vocalisations -it would have said 'THEY'RE YA GO, HAVE A NICE LIFE !'.

The bird was quickly processed and released. It continued showing and feeding well for the rest of the day. The important measurements then allowed the ringers to name the bird - it was an Alder Flycatcher and the first record for Britain !

The 7 hour drive home seemed easy and I took a look at the sky when we got back, boy was it clear and full of stars, no surprise it isn't present this morning - THIS bird has more records to break !

The flycatcher made news on the TV - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7662371.stm

Even a Merlin unsuccessfully chasing a Snow Bunting high overhead was demoted to an 'also ran' today !

A big thanks to the farmer for allowing access on his land, to Lee Evans for manning the gate and taking the donations and the finders for sharing a once in a lifetime bird with everyone lucky enough to make the journey.

coincidence or fate ?

Birding is a funny old game, ever trudged your local patch everyday, week in and week out and then you miss a day - what happens... somebody finds the bird of the year. This is hypothetical of course but birding does tend to throw up some odd happenings, mathematicians would probably explain it all away with probabilities and scientific formula.

How about the simple rule of thumb, if you have find a good bird then you are more likely to find another one shortly after or if you find a particularly difficult to identify rarity then you are much more likely to be able to identify that bird the second time around and therefore go looking for that species at suitable times and places and thus end up finding a 2nd or even a 3rd - I know birders on their 4th self found Blyth's Reed Warbler or the guy who found both Grey-tailed Tattlers in the UK- coincidence or fate ?

Heard the one about the birders on St Agnes a few years ago - they spend all week there, on the last morning they flush and briefly see and hear an interesting pipit - whilst trying to refind it they stumble over a Semi-palmated Sandpiper. They leave Agnes and arrive just in time for the Scillonian to depart back to Cornwall. One of the party legs it to the sightings board in the middle of Hugh Town and quickly sribbles the Semi-P up before catching the Scillonian. As they get on the Scillonian off gets a birder who immediately goes to the sightings board. He reads the latest message Semi-palmated PLOVER (note the mistake and now he thinks he is faced with a 3rd record for Britain). Off he dashes to St Agnes where he discovers the Plover is in fact a Sandpiper and not quite so interesting... whilst walking away from the plover he flushes a pipit with a distinctive call, having just got back from American he immediately knows its a Buff-bellied Pipit
and not only that but it shows fantastically well, a mega find (of the earlier bird) , but ... was it coincidence or fate !

Another aspect that runs through all of this is SKILL, which would probably be explained away by the mathematicians as 'experience meeting opportunity'. Whatever it is, most field birders have it to some degree but a few have it in abundance - we all know who these people are and their records silently scream it from the pages of the BB annual rarity report. If you have ever been in the presence of these birders then you will remember it like your first Siberian Thrush - they ooze quality !

Buckton ringing totals 2001-2008 (new birds)

Sparrowhawk 3
Kestrel 1
Moorhen 1
Ruff 1
Woodcock 1
Long-eared Owl 3
Great Spotted Woodpecker 4
Swallow 56
Meadow Pipit 17
Wren 112
Dunnock 202
Robin 130
Redstart 8
Whinchat 1
Stonechat 1
Wheatear 2
Ring Ouzel 7
Blackbird 531
Fieldfare 1
Song Thrush 137
Redwing 154
Sedge Warbler 15
Reed Warbler 3
Icterine Warbler 1
Barred Warbler 1
Lesser Whitethroat 9
Whitethroat 43
Garden Warbler 20
Blackcap 40
Yellow-browed Warbler 9
Chiffchaff 12
Willow Warbler 24
Goldcrest 837
Firecrest 2
Spotted Flycatcher 4
Red-breasted Flycatcher 3
Pied Flycatcher 13
Long-tailed Tit 16
Willow Tit 1
Blue Tit 57
Great Tit 37
Treecreeper 1
Isabelline Shrike 1
Great Grey Shrike 1
Magpie 1
Starling 1
House Sparrow 6
Tree Sparrow 94
Chaffinch 29
Brambling 32
Greenfinch 41
Goldfinch 41
Siskin 14
Linnet 56
Common Redpoll 1
Lesser Redpoll 10
Bullfinch 4
Northern Bullfinch 1
Yellowhammer 50
Reed Bunting 82

2894 individuals of 60 species