Pennington Marsh - 6th November

After dropping Tobias at school I paid a breif visit to Pennington Marsh mainly to see the Grey Phalarope that had been present since 26th October on Oxey Lagoon and two Cattle Egret that were found yesterday. Arriving at the car park at the bottom of Lower Pennington Lane I quickly located one of the two Cattle Egret preening on the north edge of Efford Lagoon. After a short while this single bird flew east and joined the second bird feeding around cattle on the campsite to the north of the Lower Pennington Lane carpark. I then headed to the coast hearing a Brambling fly over and a couple of Redpoll. At the coast there were good numbers of Brent Goose, Wigeon, Grey Plover, Dunlin and Knot while to sea there were 12 Great-crested Grebe and six Eider. At Oxey Lagoon the Grey Phalarope showed well in the morning sun as it fed in the western corner of the lagoon and I watched this bird for around 45 minutes. In the scrub along the edge of the lagoon were four vocal Dartford Warbler and a Firecrest - the latter is a scarce bird at Pennington.

Grey Phalarope - Oxey Lagoon, Pennington Marsh

Grey Phalarope - Oxey Lagoon, Pennington Marsh

Grey Phalarope - Oxey Lagoon, Pennington Marsh

Brent Goose - Oxey Lagoon, Pennington Marsh

Distant shot of one of the Cattle Egret - Lower Pennington Lane, Pennington Marsh

It was a beautiful still day and so I took my sound recording kit with me, here are a mixed flock of Wigeon recorded on Pennington Lagoon with the guttural female calls shown on the sonogram as vertical broadband lines and the evocative male 'wheeoo' calls shown as large inverted 'V's.

This is a recording of one of the Dartford Warbler I saw today. The recording is a substantial length of song while the sonogram shows a short sample of the same song. This was a singing male interacting with two immature birds so various calls can be heard in the recording. The sonogram conveys the scratchy sound of the song with occasional upward, downward and near constant frequency notes thrown in.

Finally, this is the Firecrest at Oxey Lagoon with various seeping calls and a single uprising contact call.

Portland and Lodmoor - 15th October

Another morning at Portland saw me arriving in the car park at the Bill at 07:30 just as the sun was rising. Overhead passed large numbers of 'Alba' Wagtail, Meadow Pipit, Linnet and Goldfinch while three Siskin and two Reed Bunting also passed over. In the grassland beside the Quintiq compound were two Firecrest. I wandered a short way northwards along the West Cliffs and around the back of the Pulpit Inn recording another four Firecrest with another two in the scrub infront of the Old Boat House building. It was evident that there had been an overnight fall of Firecrest. I wandered over to the Observatory Quarry where there were another two Firecrest and a Hawfinch calling from the bushes before flying east over the observatory garden. Wandering through the scrub at the Hut Fields I recorded a Chiffchaff, Blackcap and another three Firecrest while overhead there was a continuoosu stream of Alba Wagtail, Linnet and Meadow Pipit. Walking along the East Cliffs, the paddocks were full of Alba Wagtail and Meadow Pipit while two Wheatear showed well. In the scrub along the East Cliffs there were further Firecrest, another Hawfinch, three Blackcap and two Chiffchaff. Heading towards Culverwell I bumped into some birders who reported that a Radde's Warbler had been heard in the scrub, the nets had been opened and I waited around to see if it was caught. Three Firecrest, two Blackcap and a Whinchat were here but no sign of the Radde's so I gave up and headed over the Top Fields where the highlights were a Yellow-browed Warbler and further Firecrest. News broke that the Radde's had been captured in the observatory garden soon after I had left Culverwell.

I decided to head to the observatory and spend my last hour or so here as the Radde's had been released into the observatory quarry but other than more Firecrest, a Snipe and a Mistle Thrush flying north I saw little. I was time to head off but a total of 54 Firecrest for the morning was amazing - the Portland Observatory blog reported around 150 birds in the Bill area and an account of the day can be read here.

Firecrest - Hut Fields, Portland

Wheatear - Paddocks along East Cliffs, Portland

Chiffchaff - Culverwell, Portland

Blackcap - Top Fields, Portland

'Alba' Wagtail were abundant at Portland today but all those that I had decent views of 

were Pied Wagtail - Top Fields, Portland

Pied Wagtail - Top Fields, Portland

Pied Wagtail - Top Fields, Portland

I had around an hour to spare so popped into Lodmoor for a Lesser Yellowlegs that had been present since 5th October and I eventually caught up with it along the western side of the reserve but it wasn't showing especially well. Also here were three Little Stint, four Ruff, two Green Sandpiper and a Great White Egret.

Ruff - Lodmoor RSPB

Lesser Yellowlegs - Lodmoor RSPB

Tuscany, Italy - 10th-15th April

After a number of birding trips of late it was time for a laid back family holiday and so Sarah, Tobias and I were heading for Tuscany for a long weekend's break. I have previously only been to Italy once before when Sarah and I visited Rome and Pompeii in 2008. Italy has a reputation for being birdless but I had hopes for a few padders even if there were no lifers readily available.

Logistics
We flew with British Airways from Heathrow at 08:50 to Pisa landing at 12:00, Italy being one hour ahead of the UK. We stayed at Castello di Castole to the west of Siena between Casole d'Elsa and Pievescole, not for any bird reason in particular but because the hotel is of good quality, child friendly and has grounds of 4,500 acres which may hold a few birds - okay, so there was a bit of a bird slant to the choice. I had looked at hiring a bird guide for a morning but in hindsight decided not to do this due to limited time and the desire to spend time with Sarah and Tobias and to relax. I contacted Marco Valtriani at 'Birding in Italy' he was very responsive and helpful and I would certainly recommend his services if you are planning a trip although, of course, I did not bird with him. We hired a car from Avis and based our entire holiday not too far from the hotel. Our return flight was at 13:05 from Pisa landing in Heathrow at 14:30.

Itinerary

• Day 1 (10th) - Flight Heathrow-Pisa (08:50-12:00) followed by drive to Castello di Castole arriving at around 15:00 spent the afternoon relaxing.
• Day 2 (11th) - After a leisurely start spent the late morning and the afternoon relaxing in the town of Siena.
• Day 3 (12th) - Spent the day walking the tracks around the hotel grounds.
• Day 4 (13th) - Drove to Florence (approximately one hour) and spent the day in the city.
• Day 5 (14th) - Spent the morning walking within the grounds of the hotel and headed to the beautiful town of San Gimignano
• Day 6 (15th) - Left hotel at 09:30 for the 1.5 hour drive to Pisa and our flight home at 13:05, flight delayed until 13:30 landing in the UK at 14:40.

Weather

Throughout our stay the weather was warm and spring like with temperatures ranging from 19-23c and light winds.

Diary

10th April
After a very early start (04:00) we landed in Pisa on schedule and after vast amount of faffing at the Avis car hire centre we were on our way to our hotel. The drive went smoothly, Tobias asleep and the sat-nav guiding us smoothly along. We saw little, a few sparrows which I took to be Italian Sparrow but we didn't stop. A quick stop for some roadside orchids along the road to the hotel produced a nice group of Early Spider Orchid. We got to the hotel checked in ordered a bottle of Champagne and relaxed on the veranda of our room enjoying the view of the Tuscan landscape and a few birds. We saw Cirl Bunting, Firecrest, abundant Serin, Woodlark, Black Redstart, Firecrest, Swift, Swallow and House Martin. Italian Wall Lizards were abundant and scuttled around the flower beds near to the door of our room.

Early Spider Orchid

Italian Wall Lizard

Italian Wall Lizard

View from our balcony at the Hotel Castello di Castole

11th April

We spent the day relaxing in the town of Siena today and didn't really see any birds to speak of. The usual species were visible from the balcony plus we added Short-toed Treecreeper and three Scop's Owl calling at night.

12th April

We spent the day relaxing in the hotel with a nice walk through the grounds of the hotel. The walk was not as relaxing as we had anticipated mainly due to the tracks around the grounds being very steep in places, this meant that I spent much time pushing a push-chair uphill or controlling it as it went down. The birds we saw were much as we had seen from the balcony, we added Hare to the list and saw a range of plants although it appeared that we were a little early in the season for most species to be flowering. Butterflies included Orange-tip, Wood White, Swallowtail, Scarce Swallowtail and Brimstone.

Italian Wall Lizard

Purple Milk-vetch

Scarce Swallowtail

St. Bernard's Lily

Green Lizard

Wood White

13th April
Today was another day spent in a town, this time Florence around one hour to the north-east of our hotel. I have to say that I was not fond of Florence, very crowded and not especially attractive. We added Mallard to the list and there were a few Swallow, House Martin and Italian Sparrow in the town.

14th April
I decided to get up early today and do a little birding. I birded an area of grassland and scrub plus into some pretty birdless mixed woodland in the hotel grounds. Hare were abundant this early in the morning before people were around and there were also many Roe Deer. I added Redstart, Little Owl, Tawny Owl, Garden Warbler and Sardinian Warbler to the trip list but otherwise it was relatively slow going and birds were pretty unapproachable in general although I had nice views of Firecrest and Short-toed Treecreeper.

Hare

Firecrest

Firecrest

Firecrest

Serin

Short-toed Treecreeper

 

 Wall Brown

Speckled Wood

Blackcap 

After breakfast we went for a short walk around the hotel grounds, this time staying on roads that were a little flatter. We added a few nice butterflies to the list including, Pearl-bordered Fritillary, Green-underside Blue and Southern Festoon the latter two of which were new for me.  

Green-underside Blue

Green-underside Blue

Southern Festoon

Edible Frog

Bumblebee species on Bugle

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the fantastic town of San Gimignano where we had views of Italian Sparrow and I enjoyed a lovely lunchtime glass of Chianti.

Italian Sparrow

15th April

Our final day consisted of driving back to the airport at Pisa for our 13:05 flight back to the UK.

Bird Species List

Common Pheasant

Mallard

Rock Dove

Common Woodpigeon

Eurasian Collared-dove

Common Swift

Cattle Egret

Grey Heron

Yellow-legged Gull 

Little Owl 

Eurasian Scops-owl

Tawny Owl

Eurasian Buzzard

Eurasian Green Woodpecker

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Common Kestrel 

Eurasian Skylark

Woodlark

Barn Swallow

Northern House Martin

White Wagtail

Northern Wren

Common Blackbird

Common Nightingale

European Robin 

Black Redstart

Common Redstart

Common Firecrest

Common Chiffchaff

Blackcap

Garden Warbler

Sardinian Warbler

Coal Tit

Great Tit

Common Blue Tit

Long-tailed Tit 

Eurasian Nuthatch

Short-toed Treecreeper

Eurasian Jay

Common Magpie

Eurasian Jackdaw

Hooded Crow

Common Starling

Italian Sparrow

Common Chaffinch

European Serin

European Goldfinch

Cirl Bunting

Total = 48 species