The Deskbound Birder: Blyth's Reed Warbler

Showing posts with label Blyth's Reed Warbler. Show all posts

Wednesday, 3 October 2018

Shetland Mainland - 3rd October

The morning dawned still and fairly sunny, such a change to yesterday, I headed south from Lerwick and spent much of the morning birding the Leebitten and Sandwick area. It was great to be out birding on Shetland but there was not a lot about. From Leebitten I walked out along the eastern coastline to Pund and then west to Sandwick where I spent some time birding the harbour and then back via Park Lee to Leebitten. In this time my highlights were six Snipe, two Ruff, 45 Golden Plover, 50+ Black Guillemot in Sandwick Bay, 65 Sky Lark, one Grey Wagtail, five Wheatear, one Whinchat, one Willow Warbler and 35 Twite. Not a lot to show for 3.5 hours birding.

Common Starling of subspecies zetlandicus - Sandwick, Mainland Shetland

Snipe (two birds) - Sandwick, Mainland Shetland

Twite - Sandwick, Mainland Shetland

Hooded Crow - Sandwick, Mainland Shetland

Golden Plover - Sandwick, Mainland Shetland

Willow Warbler - Sandwick, Mainland Shetland

Northern Wren of subspecies zetlandicus - Sandwick, Mainland Shetland

Grey Seal - Leebitten, Mainland Shetland

Back at the car at 11:00 I was wondering what to do, so scanning Birdguides, I saw there was a report of a Barred Warbler at Hoswick Burn, just a short way from Leebitten so I headed off to look for this and to bird the Burn. The rain started to fall and it was very quiet, a Willow Warbler and a Chiffchaff but little else. I then glimpsed an Acrocephalus warbler near to the top end of the Burn which I knew immediately was either a Marsh or Blyth's Reed. The bird was feeding in Rose bushes and was fairly elusive but over a period of an hour or so I saw enough to convince myself that it was a Blyth's Reed Warbler, the face pattern, short primaries and its frequent calling were enough to identify the bird.

Blyth's Reed Warbler - Hoswick Burn, Mainland Shetland

I then headed down to Southpunds at Levenwick where another Barred Warbler had been reported but on arrival I had to deal with various work stuff on the phone so lost the first hour or so. I wandered in to the hamlet and fairly quickly but briefly picked up the Barred Warbler in Sycamores but no sooner had I seen it it vanished again. There were some great looking gardens here full of rariety potential but I saw little else and further work stuff prevented me from exploring further.

I then decided to head north to Lunna where a Melodius Warbler had been present for a few days but I hadn't appreciated that it was almost an hours drive so by the time I arrived at was just gone 16:30. I wandered around this beautiful area seeing little but for a stunning summer plumaged Great-northern Diver just offshore and a few Black Guillemot that showed well, there was a single Wheatear in the fields. I birded the area until 17:45, dipping the Melodius Warbler but enjoying my time in this beautiful and remote feeling part of Mainland Shetland. A few brief stops on the way back to Lerwick produced 45 Wigeon, seven Red-breasted Merganser, three Tufted Duck, 12 Gadwall and two Grey Heron all of which were new for the trip. I was back at the Lerwick Hotel for 18:30 for much needed dinner as I had skipped lunch. Tomorrow I try to reach Fair Isle but the weather forecast looks less than ideal for the flight so it could be mainland again.

Great-northern Diver - Lunna, Mainland Shetland

Black Guillemot - Lunna, Mainland Shetland

Tuesday, 23 February 2016

Desert National Park and Little Rann of Kutch, India - 12th February (Day 5)

This was to be a long driving day travelling from Jaisalmer to the Rann Riders Hotel to the east of Dasada ready for some time birding in the Little Rann of Kutch. We were to cover around 500km which was to take approximately 10 hours. Just outside of Jaisalmer we stopped at the Akal Fossil Wood Park, the park is designated for its fossil trees from the Jurassic period the largest being a tree trunk that is 13 meters in length and has a width of 1.3 meters. The park is meant to be site for Plain Leaf-warbler but we failed to see this species. Highlights here were Desert Lark, Isabelline Shrike, four Blyth’s Reed Warbler, Black-bellied Sandgrouse, White-throated Fantail and a female Variable Wheatear, unbelievably the first female we had seen despite having recorded in excess of 50 males. After an hour or so we returned to the car and relaxed into our journey watching the Indian lives and landscapes pass. The landscape changing from parched barren desert to lush acacia scrub and well irrigated fields. We added a few new birds from the car including Black-winged Stilt, White-tailed Plover, Common Crane, Jungle Babbler pus the usual range of egrets and herons. Eventually arriving at around 19:00 we checked into our hotel, Rann Riders, emptied our room of mosquitos and headed for our dinner of curry but to find that Gujarat is a dry state and there was no Kingfisher beer to be had – disaster!