Gulls

I took my dad to Norfolk yesterday (for the 3rd time this week). We found the shorelarks for him and spent another fun morning seawatching. The scoter numbers are well into their thousands and today they were swirling around in clouds off shore with the wind farm as a backdrop (hope they don't get too close to the mincers). A slavonian grebe was out there today. We checked out the brent geese at Burnham Ovary- there is a bird in the flock that is a very good candidate for black brant. If not pure then a hybrid possibly but it does tick the boxes. I videoed it but owing to distance the images are blurred when I try to take a snapshot. The bird has a very stark bright white collar that is all the way round the front, it is a dark bird with obvious white on the flanks. I'm sure someone will shed light on it at some point. At Titchwell the gulls were very bunched up sheltering from the wind but I picked out 2 yellow-legged gulls before the sun went down.

Tonight for some reason better known to myself I did the Chasewater gull roost in the pouring rain. The day had started out well with a beautiful sunny morning spent at Stubbers checking out the Caspian gull. The gulls show so well here it makes gull watching very easy. I find the roost much more fun if a little colder! Just a couple of pics from today whilst I warm my toes on the radiator and dry out my soaking wet clothes.

Spot the Caspian

Spot the Med

Baileys has been beaten up at Chasewater again today by loose dogs running amock. Luckily these 2 were muzzled so they didn't do any physical damage. It does nothing for her confidence and nothing for my anger at peoples selfish stupidity. The man did apologise which was unusual but it shouldn't have happened in the first place. She got chased last week by a rottie cross having a go at her too. She is on the lead while these things happen and I just wish people would have the decency to control their pets. Another dog, a boxer x mastiff type was off lead and ran away from it's owner into the railway compound; it was running up to families with small kids and trying to get into their cars! The dog was having fun but the kids certainly weren't. Baileys does, I know, give off an air of nervousness that makes other dogs pick on her and she is going to training to boost her confidence. She copes really well there and plays happily with all the dogs. These stupid and avoidable little occurences are such a knock back. I don't blame the dogs at all, just their horrid owners. I think because I have seen the damage dogs do and been the one there watching whilst awful wounds with flesh hanging out are treated it makes me more cautious; maybe I should carry photos of it to show the stupid people and make them think.

Yippee

Last night I did my first roost of the winter. The weather was windy and threatening rain. However it stayed dry, the light was perfect and the gulls lined up beautifully. It didn't take long to get back into the swing of things and I started to pick out the suspects- those with a clean white head and mantle colour slightly darker than the herring but not so dark as the lesser-bbs. I found three; the rest was up to Ian, sorting the yellow-legged from the Caspians. He aged them too- how on earth he does it I have no idea! Practice I guess. Also present was a nice adult Med, nice and simple. No Iceland or Glaucous gulls, such a shame.

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In an attempt to redeem myself for not looking properly for the shorelarks we drove back over to Holkham Gap today. As we arrived 7 whoopers swans flew over- these were reported not long after from Holme. It was a very windy day so we aimed logically for the most sheltered area of the reserve, where a large mixed flock of goldfinch, linnet, starling, meadow and rock pipits were feeding. Bingo! A neat little group of 12 shorelarks pottering about on the rough. Absolutely gorgeous. This is my spectacular image of them, hahaha :-) They are in the image honest- I don't like to get too close

After heading down to the beach we let Baileys have a run around then called her back (she pretends not to hear because the waves are so loud but she understands sign language) We watched the sea for a while. Again the birds were impressive. Three red-necked grebes, goldeneye, eiders, great Northern divers, great crested grebes, common scoters and red-brested mergansers. Lovely. A mobile flock of 20 or so snow buntings topped off the morning nicely.

We decided to nip into Holkham Hall grounds for a quick scout about. Unfortunately the deer park is closed on a Tuesday so we didn't get far. I did spot this rather beautiful tree though (much easier to photograph than shorelarks)

After a bite to eat (roast beef and horseradish sarnies; yum) we went for a breezy walk at Burnham Overy Staithe. The fields were full of brent geese and we spied four marsh harriers. Waders were out in force with redshanks, dunlin and curlews being the most abundant. A seal was hauled out in the distance. The arrival of rain forced our early departure and the lure of a brew took us back to Titchwell for the second time this week. Here Baileys demonstrated her prowess as a gun dog; by entirely ignoring a pheasant and chewing instead on a nice big stick.

The species were pretty much the same as Saturday, however the large flock of golden plover had been displaced by lots of ruff. As we sat and watched the gull numbers started to increase and we dropped into roost mode. Two yellow-legged gulls and a single Caspian gull were hiding in amongst the large roost along with an adult Med (which I found, all by myself.......proud) Photo's are grainy and blurred- it was a lot darker than you'd think. One of the pics has a yellow-legged gull in it, not that you can tell.

The darkness drew in and time to go home; the journey made very entertaining by a 50's music revival on radio2. When did music stop being so much fun?

Chasewater today

A rather nice sunny morning soon turned into a proper Chasewater day- wet and windy. It was nice rain though and at least I had my coat. It did mean that my camera stayed in my bag though and so the late autumn photographs of Chasewater I had wanted to capture did not happen. The water levels are still very low on the main lake as is to be expected but the recent rainfall meant the pools and marshes are nice, wet and soggy. Nothing unusual to be mentioned, all the usual suspects really. Some nice flocks of goldeneye are building up now, there are a large number of cormorants patrolling the main lake. I wonder if the low levels are making it much easier to catch fish. There are lots of great crested grebes and several little grebes. There are lots of lapwings but we didn't spot the single dunlin today. Tufted duck numbers seem low on the slurry pool, perhaps it's a little early for the usual high numbers? There seemed to be quite a lot of teal particularly on the main lake. We heard a willow tit round near Fly Pool which is not so far from the feeders. I wonder what should be being done to protect these birds now they are red listed; I might start poking around on the Internet to see what I can find out. Ian has done the gull roost tonight but so far I have still not ventured out to one; maybe when the first Iceland or Glaucous turns up I may be tempted. Watch this space.

Alive with birds

On Saturday, after an early morning run up to Nottingham we decided to get away from the rain and headed over to North Norfolk. We stopped on the way to fill up on an absolutely gorgeous cooked breakfast which provided me with fuel for the entire day it was so large. Our first stop was Holkham Gap which is the area of beach accessed from Lady Anne's Drive. There had been shorelarks reported from here but we unfortunately chose to head in the opposite direction and never actually located them. I saw my first shorelark in Snettisham a couple of years ago; they are such beautiful little birds. However we did a spot of sea watching from the beach and weren't disappointed. Enormous flocks of common scoter, thousands of birds, were off shore. Constantly shifting around Ian did eventually pick out a velvet amongst them but Baileys decided to knock the 'scope. How does she always manage to do that when you are on a good bird? There were plenty of great crested grebes and gannets, a few red-breasted mergansers, a large raft of eiders, a guillemot, lots of gulls, great Northern and black-throated divers and to my delight a red-necked grebe (my second only). I don't think I've ever seen so many birds in one location at one time on the sea. Baileys was allowed to play in the sea as she was far enough away from the birds. She was brilliant and came back when called each time. She walked back up the beach with us without running away too; progress.
As we hadn't arrived in Norfolk until midday, the daylight was already beginning to draw in so rather than looking through all the pink-foots on the marsh at Holkham we headed back along the coast road to Titchwell for an evening wader watch. The reeds are dying down for the winter and their leaves have turned a beautiful golden orange colour, their flower heads are a frosty grey and the whole scene was fantastic. A farmer rang a shot out over his field opposite the A149 and thousands of pink-feet took to the sky along with clouds of lapwings and golden plover. The fresh marsh was alive with birds. Hundreds of ducks; gadwall, shoveler, teal, wigeon, mallard and shelduck. Masses of gulls and flocks of golden plover and lapwings. Curlews, bar-tailed godwit, redshanks, a few dunlin and avocets. Snipe were feeding out on the islands. The whole place had such an atmosphere today. A walk down to the beach revealed the tide to be way out so we walked out to the shelter of some rocks to watch the shorebirds. Oystercatchers and turnstones were poking about in the seaweed and lots of brent geese were grazing the vegetation of the more distant rocks. There were some dunlin, a few godwits and grey plovers. A few cheeky oystercatchers made their way up the beach much to Baileys amusement. There were virtually no scoter to be seen, they must all have been down at Holkham however three goldeneye were hunting just off the rocks. As the day drew to a close we made our way back up to the reserve, stopping only to laugh at Baileys rolling in the seaweed along the drift line and then wondering how bad the car was going to smell (it was actually pretty odour free unlike the deadly sulphurous seaweed we found at Watermill Cove back on Scilly in October!) While walking back up to the visitor centre we saw a lovely marsh harrier quartering over the wildfowlers land. You can't beat Norfolk in the Winter.

Chasewater today

We took advantage of the sunny (and showery) morning and walked a circuit of Chasewater. The dam is pretty much clear of trees now in readiness for the major works next year. The work involves draining the lake and reinforcing the dam in readiness for the great storm of the year 2100 when the lake will flood, the dam will burst and all of kingdom come will be lost. I noticed that the garden of the derelict house at the North end of the dam has been given the scrub clearance treatment. No doubt to make way for a carpark at some point; I'm sure the tawny owls will be very impressed. The weather was windy and the walk very enjoyable, B had lots of muddy puddles to play in and enjoyed trying to steal Ian's sausage roll snack by leaping 5 feet into the air and taking it from his hand. A Med. gull was sleeping on the South shore. A female goosander was swimming off the dam, about 200 lapwings along with a single dunlin were circling overhead after lifting off from the now redesigned balcony shoreline (see November diary at http://www.chasewater.org.uk/ ). Three ruddy ducks were off the West shore and three more goosanders flew by. A little grebe was showing well and there were several goldeneye. The feeding station is looking very good, some of the wildlife group members have been working hard down there. Today a red deer stag was doing it's best to hide in the bushes. Several greenfinches were on the feeders and a glorious male bullfinch flitted in and out. No willow tits today but we weren't there for long. I hope LDC do something to ensure these red listed birds are looked after when they start to remove more trees in their heathland management program. I was pretty exhausted after the circuit, I'm still not back to full fitness yet, the rest of the afternoon was spent doing housework (being ill means the house was not looking at it's best) and digging up leeks; some of which have been attacked by a late bout of onion fly! Are there any garden pests we don't have? I gave the gull roost a miss and spent some time being entertained by my niece and nephew in the warm cosy house; I haven't done a roost yet this year, I think I'm getting too old to stand out in the cold :-)

First aid talk

About 2 months ago Baileys and myself started going to obedience dog training. On our first night, Chris, one of the trainers asked me if, sometime in the future, I would consider giving a talk to the club on basic first aid for dogs. At first I fobbed it off and said I would ask if someone at work might be able to do it. I'm not the most confident person in the world and the thought of standing up in front of a group of people is the single most horrifying thought I could have! After a week of deliberation I started to have a bit more belief in myself. After all I've been doing my job for almost half my life and have assisted with more first aid scenarios than you can imagine. Something came over me and in a rash moment of confidence I said 'I'll do it'!!!!!!! Two months on and several anxiety induced dreams later (one of which involved the practical applications of malt loaf in life saving circumstances) the night finally came. I was well prepared mentally, had researched everything I wanted to say and got my props bundled together, one of which was a yellow furry hound by the name of Baileys. I have never been more terrified in my entire life at the sight of two rows of chairs all pointing at me and 15 expectant looking faces. However after a slightly shaky start when all moisture instantly evaporated from my throat I got into the swing of it and the people seemed to really benefit. I am still recovering from a chest infection and was most relieved that my voice held out. My audience were really nice, getting involved in what I was talking about and asking questions. B was the star of the show. After telling everyone how important it is to train your dog to accept being bandaged and having imaginary wounds cleaned so that they can cope with the horrible things life throws at them in the real world, I asked my little pooch to step up to the front. Quite apart from having trained her she has never so much as seen a bandage let alone had one round her head so I felt a little hypocritical. I needn't have worried. She lay coolly on the floor while I applied an imaginary pressure bandage to her paw and demonstrated the location of a dog's heart and how to check her eyelid reflexes. She gave everyone the 'please rescue me, my mother's gone insane' eyes as I showed how to bandage a bleeding ear tip by wrapping bandages around her head and she never complained once as I showed how to make a temporary muzzle to stop a sore dog biting the person trying to care for it. I can only say how proud I am of her and how much I think the world of her; she is an amazing little dog not only for being such a good girl but for giving me the support and confidence I needed tonight.

Back online

Hurray! After months of my computer playing up and then finally giving up the ghost completely I have, at last, my new PC up and running. I've been borrowing other peoples to check email etc but it's so nice to be back at my own desk!
Time for a bit of a catch up-
The good life garden is winding down for the winter after a pretty good harvest. There are still leeks, onions, broccoli, parsnips, swedes and spuds to feed us both so our weekly shopping bill is pretty small. If you have the space I definitely recommend it (so long as you don't take the munching bugs and pests to heart too much). The guinea pigs have been well supplied with the waste from the runner and french beans (of which there are masses in the freezer......beans that is, not guinea pigs)
Baileys is thoroughly enjoying obedience training. She does pretty much everything I ask of her and knows subtle hand signals so I barely even have to speak to her. I have been so lucky with her, she fitted in so well with us and has turned into a smashing little dog. She proudly learned shake a paw last week. She does have a bit of a thing about people looming over her to say hello (particularly if they are carrying something.....'scope carrying bird watchers beware!) She will go to say hello then panic and try to escape but being on the lead just means spinning in manic circles. She is much much better if people just ignore her and let her go about her business. Luckily, most birdwatchers are brilliant, they just look at her with complete disgust and look away- which is the absolute best thing they can do. At twitches she now just sits or lies down at my side and behaves better than the people do. What an angel.
We spent a sunny but windy afternoon at Stubbers Green last Sunday watching the gulls with our mate Paul. The gulls move in and out between the loafing area and the adjacent tip and good views are pretty much guaranteed. There were two Caspian gulls there during the course of our watch (don't ask me to age them, I can't remember!) plus a 'fake' Caspian that was really a herring gull with some Caspian features. I haven't done a Chasewater roost so far this season but the Caspian gulls are regularly being picked up there. Work starts next year on the dam at Chasewater so the lake will soon start to be drained. The consequences for the wildlife not only in the lake but the surrounding marsh land which will almost certainly dry out are too awful to think about.
I have a sun tan at the moment; the result of a trip to the Scillies in mid October. Our week was very quiet for migrants but I had a fab time despite the grumblings of some of the birders who mostly looked a little bit glum all week. I adopted my usual tactic of going the opposite way to the crowds but managed to pick up most of the best birds of the week (I think I only missed common rosefinch and ring-billed gull). New ones for me were Richard's pipit and Radde's warbler, plus a very brief view of a little bunting whilst I was perched on top of a bramble covered wall. Other good birds included rose-coloured starling, red-breasted flycatcher, pied fly., red-throated pipit, wryneck, yellow browed warblers, and masses of black redstarts. A small flock of whooper swans put on a nice display at Higher Moors and on the big pool on St. Agnes. Being on the wrong islands meant I missed the basking shark and minke whale that showed well on separate occasions off Tolman Point. I did however video a nice pod of dolphins of Penninis. Some pictures of my trip;


Puppy on a boat


whinchat in heat haze


Richards Pipit on Bryher


Spot the Raddes warbler


Black redstart (always looking the other way!) on St Agnes


Whooper at Porth Hellick


Blurry hummingbird hawk moth.


Caterpillar of the yellow-tailed moth, how funky is he? I also caught up with the most twitched stick insect of all time. Two spiny stick insects spent the week near the monument in Old Town church yard. They provided a nice distraction for all the birdless birders.


Sparrows are very tame on the Scillies


This would make a lovely Christmas card!


Bishop rock lighthouse


Baileys birdwatching at the Parsonage on St Agnes (this is her typical birdwatching position)




But she does know how to have fun!

We took a detour on the way home and went to see the brown shrike at Staines Moor. We were amused to bump into lots of the birders we'd seen on the Scillies doing the exact same thing. The bird showed very well, moving between several of the bushes. This was my kind of twitch, a steady trickle of birders coming and going, all watching the bird from a good distance and not chasing it about. Baileys was as good as gold although boredom from several hours of being stuck in the car did eventually set in and she started to get into mischief. She jumped up on the tree trunk bench that was by the path, found someones discarded cocktail sausage and wolfed it down. She paid the price of being such a gannet when the sausage was returned to the outside world about 20 minutes later. We went for a walk along the footpath where we saw lots of ringed necked parakeets- you can't really fail to miss them, they are so very noisy


I've been for a twilight walk around Chasewater tonight, it was a beautiful evening. The autumn colours looked gorgeous around the North heath and there must have been an owl roosting in the trees as the magpies were frantic. The gull roost was fairly spread out and when I met up with Ian after my circuit he'd seen a Caspian and a yellow-legged gull but otherwise the birds hadn't lined up well with there being no wind. I'm looking forward to winter and the white-winged gulls.

Loch of Strathbeg

My husband asked if I fancied a day out with him whilst he worked on an installation for work in Fraserburgh. Having no idea where this was, I just said 'yep, go on then'. I got a bit of a surprise when I got the map out as we headed up the M6 on Saturday morning and found our intended location was the moszt North Easterly point of Scotland!
Many hours later, the installation having only taken 20minutes (!) we spent our afternoon exploring. We visited the RSPB's Loch of Strathbeg where thousands of pink footed geese are currently taking over the marsh. There was a white rumped sandpiper amongst the dunlin- a species that has eluded me in the past due to lack of my 'scope and which eluded me on this occassion.....due to lack of 'scope! I did have my camera however so took a few pictures. The red square indicates the presence of the White-tailed eagle that has been on the reserve for a while (honestly, it really is an eagle)




Our afternoon of birding ended at the Ythan (I think that's how you spell it) estuary where masses of eider ducks, gulls and waders were feeding close to the car. We stayed in the car so as not to flush them; besides, had we left our car I think we would have been blown right into the middle of the mud flats it was so windy. By now we had decided that driving home was going to be too much like hard work so we headed two hours West to Carrbridge and stayed in a lovely warm hotel.
The following morning the wind had dropped and the sun was shining so we decided to head up Strathdearn to look for golden eagles. We had two distant views this time, one juvenile bird alighted on a rock for a while. Too far for photographs though. I did manage a couple of pictures of the red deer; present in massive numbers, mainly bachelor herds. One herd was a stag with his harem and he spent a lot of time bellowing out his name across the valley.
All in all a lovely weekend away and nice that it was so impromptu and unplanned.