Friday 23 December 2016

Slimbridge WWT - 10th December

We had the weekend at our cottage in the Cotswolds and on Saturday I spent the morning at Slimbridge. The weather was pretty atrocious and so my time was spent dashing between hides. I paused at the Asia collection for a few moments and couldn't resist taking a couple of images of two species I had recently seen on the Birdquest China Wetlands trip but which eluded decent photographs so here are a couple of gratuitous images of Falcated Duck and Baer's Pochard.

Falcated Duck - Slimbridge WWT

Baer's Pochard - Slimbridge WWT

Baer's Pochard - Slimbridge WWT

In the south hide there were good numbers of Herring Gull and Black-headed Gull with five Lesser Black-backed Gull. Approximately 11 Snipe and 350 Lapwing were also present. I wandered up to the Zeiss Hide, here there were very large numbers of Lapwing, Pintail, Wigeon and Teal and around 600 Golden Plover - quite an impressive sight. There were also 12 Ruff showing distantly from the hide. Six Barnacle Goose showed distantly but I couldn't locate any White-fronted Goose - numbers have declined at this site significantly. I then headed to the hides at the Rushy Pen where a winter plumage Little Stint was showing distantly - its not often that I have seen this plumage in the UK. A total of 25 Bewick's Swan were present on Rushy Pen and it was good to get close views of these birds. 

Herring Gull (2nd Winter) - Slimbridge WWT

Herring Gull (2nd Winter) - Slimbridge WWT

Herring Gull (3rd winter) - Slimbridge WWT

Herring Gull (3rd winter) - Slimbridge WWT

Lesser Black-backed Gull (adult winter) - Slimbridge WWT

Pintail - Slimbridge WWT

Bewick's Swan - Slimbridge WWT

Bewick's Swan - Slimbridge WWT

Bewick's Swan - Slimbridge WWT

Bewick's Swan - Slimbridge WWT

Bewick's Swan - Slimbridge WWT

Thursday 15 December 2016

Pennington Marsh and Cattle Egret at Marchwood - 14th December

After dropping Tobias at school I had a couple of hours to kill before a bird survey at Marchwood so I popped to Pennington Marsh in beautiful sunny conditions. I spent a fair bit of time at the corner of Lower Pennington Lane before heading to the car park and walking to Efford Lagoon before heading out to the seawall, past Butts Lagoon and back past Fishtail lagoon. There were a lot of birds around especially on the Pennington Marshes floods with 100's of Teal, Wigeon, Lapwing, Shoveler and Pintail. High up was a flock of around 500 Golden Plover, these put on a spectacular show as they dropped in overhead and onto the marshes. Judging by their height I guessed that they had probably travelled a great distance to get here. On the grasslands at the campsite was a flock of around 200 Brent Goose which showed well in the beautiful morning light. Along the seawall the tide was very high and the wader roost on the saltings was inundated forcing the multitude of Dunlin, Knot and Grey Plover to fidget and lift in spirals of swirling birds. Two Bearded Tit flew over the reedbeds high to the west pining as they went. It was a lovely morning and I wished I could have stayed longer.

Brent Goose - Pennington Marshes

Brent Goose - Pennington Marshes

Brent Goose - Pennington Marshes

Brent Goose - Pennington Marshes

Lapwing - Pennington Marshes

Cormorant - Pennington Marshes

Golden Plover - Pennington Marshes

Golden Plover - Pennington Marshes

Golden Plover - Pennington Marshes

Golden Plover - Pennington Marshes

Golden Plover - Pennington Marshes

Golden Plover - Pennington Marshes

Golden Plover - Pennington Marshes

Golden Plover and Lapwing - Pennington Marshes

Snipe - Pennington Marshes

Snipe - Pennington Marshes

After my bird survey a drove up Marchwood Lane in Marchwood and noticed a flock of Little Egret in the field. I swore that one had a yellow bill but at 40 miles an hour it was hard to be sure so a quick U-turn and I was watching my first ever self-found Cattle Egret feeding with a flock of 12 Little Egret. I was pretty chuffed with this despite the species becoming progressively more common as the years pass.

Cattle Egret and Little Egret - Marchwood, Southampton

Cattle Egret and Little Egret - Marchwood, Southampton

Cattle Egret and Little Egret - Marchwood, Southampton

Cattle Egret and Little Egret - Marchwood, Southampton

Cattle Egret and Little Egret - Marchwood, Southampton

Wednesday 30 November 2016

Pennington Marshes - 30th November and 1st December

I spent a couple of lovely mornings at Pennington Marsh on 30th November and 1st December, the weather was superb with clear blue skies and not a breath of wind. The marshes were frozen and so the birds were gathered around areas of water free of ice. It was the usual range of species with high numbers of Brent Goose, Wigeon, Pintail and Teal. Six Ruff were scattered around the Efford Lagoon, Butts Lagoon and Jetty Lagoon area. Offshore numbers of duck appear to be very low with only six Red-breasted Merganser and 11 Eider recorded. Numbers of Knot and Bar-tailed Godwit seem particularly high at the site this winter with over 300 of the former and 120 of the latter - these numbers are approximately double the numbers usually recorded at the site. Conversely, numbers of Black-tailed Godwit are currently very low at the site with only 10 recorded on both days, normally there are several hundred birds here.


Brent Goose - Pennington Marsh


Brent Goose - Pennington Marsh


Lapwing - Pennington Marsh


Canada Goose - Pennington Marsh

Teal - Pennington Marsh

Pintail - Pennington Marsh

Canada Goose - Pennington Marsh

Teal, Wigeon and Pintail - Pennington Marsh

Turnstone - Pennington Marsh

Wigeon - Pennington Marsh

Wigeon - Pennington Marsh

A short visit to Denny Wood on the 1st December produced large numbers of Redwing plus Raven and Marsh Tit but it was remarkably quiet in the frosty conditions.

New Forest Pony - Denny Wood

Bishop's Dyke

Friday 18 November 2016

China Wetlands (Birdquest) Tour - 18th November (Day 15)

Today was going to be a long travel day. Much of the group left for the extension to the tour at 06:00 while Rienk and I had a few extra hours and so headed to Nanshan Park in Changle, Fuzhou from 08:00-10:00. We were hoping for Fork-tailed Sunbird but this was not to be, apparently it is common in the park in the spring. We recorded a few common species including Common Tailorbird, Pallas’s Warbler, Yellow-browed Warbler, Olive-backed Pipit, Plain Thrush, Japanese White-eye, Oriental Magpie-robin and Brambling and spent some time looking at the butterflies which until this site had been a bit thin on the ground. It was soon time to head back to the hotel to pack and head for the airport. I said goodbye to Rienk and flew Fuzhou to Shanghai at 13:20-14:50.

Olive-backed Pipit - Nanshan Park, Fuzhou

Common Bluebottle Graphium sarpedom - Nanshan Park, Fuzhou

Colour Sergeant Athyma nefte - Nanshan Park, Fuzhou

I think this is a Byasa species- Nanshan Park, Fuzhou

On landing in Shanghai a sickening site greeted me. Lining the grassy areas of the runways were probably thousands of metres of mist-net strung to capture and kill birds using the grasslands. There were hundreds of birds strung up dead in these nets, they mainly appeared to be Chinese Bulbul but there we also Pipits, lots of White Wagtail, several Crake/Rail and many other smaller passerines that I could not identify from the plane. Apparently this practice also occurs at Beijing Airport. To me this is a completely unjustified approach to reducing the risk of bird-strike, one that I am not aware that occurs elsewhere (although probably does) and indicates to me the scant regard that the Chinese, in general, give to wildlife. I am not aware of any movement to stop this practice at China’s airports but I am sure this must kill thousands of birds every year. There is a good write-up on the Birding Beijing website here.

I had a long stopover of almost 11 hours in Shanghai Airport which I filled with editing photographs, catching up with my notes and drinking beer!  I flew British Airways from Shanghai to London 01:55-06:50 (12.55-hour flight) but I was upgraded to first class – bonus! In hindsight I am sure there would have been a better option for my domestic and international flights, there appeared to be several flights a day to Beijing from Fuzhou and surely a better connection and shorter stopover in Beijing as British Airways fly from Beijing to London twice a day – maybe I should have looked into this in more detail.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed my first Birdquest experience, we had a good small group all of whom were good travel companions and the birding in this part of China was fantastic. For me the highlights were the cranes and in particular White-naped Crane, Siberian Crane and Red-crowned Crane, Brazilian Merganser and White’s Thrush. But the sheer numbers of wildfowl was fantastic to see as were all those eastern species that are rare vagrants to Britain.

Links to Other Days of the Trip (Click to View)