The Deskbound Birder: Eurasian Curlew

Showing posts with label Eurasian Curlew. Show all posts

Thursday, 4 October 2018

Shetland Mainland and Bressay - 4th October

So, today was the day that I was due to head to Fair Isle but I awoke to a howling gale and heavy rain, it was unlikely the plane was going to leave. After breakfast, packing my bags and checking out of the Lerwick Hotel I arrived at the airport at around 08:15 to be told that the 09:00 flight that I was booked on this morning would not depart but that I should head back to the airport for 09:30. So, I headed to Lerwick in the pouring rain and birded Loch Clickimin and Helendale. It was very slow going and I spent more time fending off the rain and wind than actually looking for birds, a 'Polish' type Mute Swan on Loch Clickimin and a Goldcrest at Helendale was all that I saw. After heading back to the airport I was told that there would be no flights until the afternoon and so I decided to headsouth to Fladdabista. I spent a couple of hours birding here and saw nothing of note whatsoever, it was windy and tough going but quite beautiful.

View south from Fladdabista

Burn at Fladdabista

After contemplating my options I decided to head for the Bressay Ferry in Lerwick and call Tingwall Airport from there. My plan was that if therewas no plane to Fair Isle to head to Bressay, where there was an American Golden Plover and Citrine Wagtail, but if there was a plane then I was well placed for my flight. At 12:30 news was that there might be a flight and so I headed to the airport. But, the weather closed in and on arrival the flight had been delayed further. I waited until 13:45 and, after speaking to the pilot who suggest that there would be no flights today, I decided to cut my losses and head to Bressay - good move as there were no further flights. The ferry to Bressay left at 14:30 and by 14:35 I was on this beautiful island in the pouring rain and howling wind - but it was a new island for me.

I first headed for the Citrine Wagtail at Gardie House which was to be a British tick but after spending around an hour looking for it and getting soaked I had not a sniff of it. But, as I was leaving I heard the distinctive call of Citrine Wagtail and the bird flew south overhead and dropped into the scrub at the southern end of the garden of Gardie House. I waited for a while and the bird wandered onto the lawn of the house and showed well but a little distantly. By now I was soaked and my bins and camera were starting to suffer and so I headed off to head to the car and look for the American Golden Plover. I whacked up the heating and AC to high in the hope of drying out a little. I drove south to the lighthouse and saw little but for one Whinchat and around 125 Golden Plover but no sign of the American. The weather brightened and so I decided to head slowly back to the Citrine Wagtail for better views, scanning for the American Golden Plover as I went. On arrival at Gardie House, I bumped into my good friend Mike Edgecombe and we wandered down to the house catching-up. When we reached the coast the wagtail was showing well down to around 10m and we watched the bird for the next 20 minutes or so before it eventually flew south.

It was now 16:45 and I decided to opt for the 17:00 ferry as I needed to make sure I had a room for the night, having checked out this AM expecting to be on Fair Isle, and to catch-up on some work.

Black Guillemot - Lerwick Harbour

Curlew - Bressay

Citrine Wagtail - Gardie House, Bressay

Thursday, 10 November 2016

China Wetlands (Birdquest) Tour - 10th November (Day 7)

Breakfast was at 06:00 and we ate noodles, onion cakes and batter sticks at a street-side stand surrounded by dogs urinating on table legs and sniffing each others arses - I felt a little less hungry than I should have done for breakfast. We then headed for the coastal wetlands to the east of Dongtai to the south of Yancheng once again. When we arrived at 07:15 the tide was still clearly along way out so we walked out to the waters edge, around 1km from the seawall. There were many Kentish Plover on the sandflats and once we reached the waters edge it was apparent that there were very large numbers of birds with thousands each of Grey Plover, Curlew and Dunlin. Amongst these were small numbers of Bar-tailed Godwit, Oystercatcher, Caspian Tern, Lesser Black-backed Gull of the race heuglini (Heuglin’s Gull) and Arctic Herring Gull of the race mongolicus (Mongolian Herring Gull). I picked up a very distant (maybe 800m) smaller gull which looked odd, it was running around amongst the waders plover like with a high pigeon breast and a short dark bill, I soon realised that it must be a Relict Gull (probably a second winter) and asked Hannu to confirm this, which he soon did – another dream bird of mine. We decided to wander closer and we managed to half the distance between us and the bird but the bird then flew and disappeared into the distance. We went back to scanning the vast numbers of waders and after 10 minutes or so I picked-up a second Relict Gull flying past us, this was a 1st winter and I managed to rattle off a few rather distant shots of this bird as it flew past and into the distance - a cracking bird and I was chuffed to have seen this species on the trip. Hannu then picked up a Nordmann’s Greenshank with its distinctly greyer upperparts, shorter bill and legs and stumpy rear end when compared to the nearby Common Greenshank. Alec and I tried to approach but they were a little skittish and kept their distance – a Red-flanked Bluetail flew in off the sea and low over the sandflats heading south, clearly a migrating bird. As we scanned around we realised that there were many Nordmann’s Greenshank and at least 75 within visible distance and a brief count. Then an adult Saunder’s Gull flew by giving a very tern like ‘kek’, a stunning little gull and my second gull tick of the morning. It was 09:30 and time to head off, we had a long drive (around 600km) south-west to Wuyuan.

Relict Gull (1st winter) - Dongtai

Eurasian Curlew of race orientalis- Dongtai

Lesser Black-backed Gull of the race heuglini (Heuglin’s Gull) - Dongtai

Dunlin, there are several races that pass winter in the area including sakhalina

and articola - Dongtai

Dunlin (different bird to above), there are several races that pass winter in the area including sakhalina and articola - Dongtai

Image showing the amazing number of wader present at this site. These are

mainly Dunlin, Grey Plover and Curlew with Nordmann's Greenshank,

Common Greenshank and Kentish Plover - Dongtai

Nordmann's Greenshank. Compared to Common Greenshank note the greyer tones and noticeably short rear-end - Dontai

Nordmann's Greenshank. Compared to Common Greenshank note the greyer tones and noticeably short rear-end- Dontai

Kentish Plover - Dongtai

Arctic Herring Gull of the race mongolicus (2nd winter) - Dongtai

Waders (mainly Dunlin and Grey Plover (plus Curlew and Nordmann's Greenshank) - Dongtai

The sandflats to the east of Dongtai the sea can just about be seen in the distance

The drive was unremarkable but we left the industrial landscape of the coast behind for an altogether more pleasant woodland landscape with distant hills and small villages. We passed through the outskirts of Shanghai and over the Yangtse River through Wuxi, Yixing and eventually arrived at Wuyuan at 21:00 and checked into the Huayi Hotel,.