Pennington Marsh - 5th and 9th March

I visited Pennington Marsh on 5th and 9th March and on both days saw much the same. Its a pretty static time of year with winter birds steadily but barely noticeably declining and very few migrants appearing. The Lapwing are now in regular display and are busy making nesting scrapes on the marsh while Black-tailed Godwit are coming into plumage and are at varying stages of turning rusty. Up to eight Ruff were present on the marshes off Lower Pennington Lane and there remain good numbers of Wigeon, Pintail, Teal and Brent Goose as well as the usual waders. There were around 400 Golden Plover on Pennington Marsh on both days, an increase in previous numbers perhaps as a result of the recent cold weather movement. On 5th I counted 34 Bar-tailed Godwit off Butts Lagoon, a higher number than usual, all were still in winter plumage. On 5th a single Spoonbill flew high to the east.

Black-tailed Godwit with summer plumage beginning to appear on head, neck and scapulars - Pennington Marsh

Black-tailed Godwit with summer plumage beginning to appear on head, neck, wing coverts, tertials and scapulars - Pennington Marsh

Black-tailed Godwit with summer plumage beginning to appear on tertials - Pennington Marsh

Black-tailed Godwit with summer plumage beginning to appear on head, neck and scapulars - Pennington Marsh

Black-tailed Godwit with very little sign of moult to summer plumage - Pennington Marsh

Ruff - Pennington Marsh

Golden Plover - Pennington Marsh

Rock Pipit - Pennington Marsh

The Mute Swan were very feisty at the marsh today with marsh territorial aggression - Pennington Marsh

I added a number of sound recordings to this post linked to uploads at the Internet Bird Collection (IBC). With the subsequent transfer of data from IBC to the Macaulay Library the links to these became broken. I have therefore subsequently uploaded these sound files to eBird and the recordings can be viewed here and here.

Pennington Marsh - 8th May

On 7th Sarah and I went out for dinner and drank a little too much so I was not inclined to get up early on 8th May so we pottered out at around 11:00 down to Pennington Marsh with Tobias in tow. We did a very short walk at a slow pace out past Shoveler Pools along the seawall and back to the car park via Fishtail Lagoon. Two calling Mediterranean Gull appeared overhead Tobias said 'they're  Black-headed Gull not a seagull, we don't say seagull do we' - spot-on, well almost! And then a displaying Lapwing overhead held his attention and span him in circles as it flew around us and he tried to follow. Wandering on there were five summer plumaged Great-crested Grebe on the sea and a few fly-by Common Tern and Sandwich Tern while two Common Tern courtship fed on the path. There was a good gathering of wader on the saltmarsh off Butts Lagoon with around 250 Dunlin, 30 Grey Plover, five Whimbrel and 15 Bar-tailed Godwit while a Spoonbill was on Fishtail Lagoon. Tobias was tired so it was time to head home but it was a nice couple of hours on the marshes.

Superb second summer Mediterranean Gull - Pennington Marsh

Reed Bunting - Butts Lagoon

Common Tern courtship feeding on the seawall, the male has a Three-spined Stickleback

Little Tern- Fishtail lagoon

Mute Swan - Fishtail Lagoon

Whitethroat - Old Landfill Pennington Marsh

Slimbridge WWT - 16th April

Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) is a site that I am just getting to know and today I spent a couple of hours birding from the hides and grew to like the place. I spent much time in the South Lake Discovery Hide where there was a great deal of gull activity particularly amongst the Black-headed Gull who were in the full throws of mating and nest building. They gave the Herring Gull and Lesser Black-backed Gull short thrift and were not at all happy with their presence. Amongst the Black-headed Gull were at least 3 pairs of Mediterranean Gull plus 4, 1st summer birds. A single colour ringed Black-headed Gull with a white ring on the right leg with the combination 20T3 in black writing was present.

Herring Gull, a 3rd summer bird - South Lake, Slimbridge

Adult and 3rd summer Lesser Black-backed Gull - South Lake, Slimbridge

Adult Lesser Black-backed Gull - South Lake, Slimbridge

Black-headed Gull's enjoying the spring - South Lake, Slimbridge

The Black-headed Gull were not too happy with the presence 

of the Herring Gulls on the scrape - South Lake, Slimbridge

Other birds on the South Lake included 5 Black-tailed Godwit, 35 Swallow, 12 Sand Martin, 1 House Martin, 2 Oystercatcher and 12 Cormorant. I wandered up the east side of the centre stopping at the Rushy Hide, Martin Smith Hide and the Holden Tower. highlights included 3 Crane, released birds part of the Great Crane Project, 60 Black-tailed Godwit, 3 Barnacle Geese, 4 Blackcap, 30 Shoveler, 45 Teal, 35 Dunlin, a colour ringed Herring Gull with a dark blue ring on the right leg with the code BEA in orange, a flock of around 50 Alba Wagtail many (80%) of which appeared to be White Wagtail and my first Sedge Warbler of the year.

Oystercatcher - South Lake, Slimbridge

Oystercatcher - South Lake, Slimbridge

Oystercatcher - South Lake, Slimbridge

Mute Swan - South Lake, Slimbridge

Mute Swan - South Lake, Slimbridge

Swallow - South Lake, Slimbridge

Map of Slimbridge WWT

3rd summer Lesser Black-backed Gull - Martin Smith Hide, Slimbridge

Shoveler - Martin Smith Hide, Slimbridge

Shoveler - Martin Smith Hide, Slimbridge

The amazing bill of Shoveler

I had run my moth trap overnight at Cowley for the first time this year but awoke to snow! The ground was white and there was a continuing heavy snow, we are not used to this in southern England let-along in April, needless to say there was little in the moth trap but for 3 hardy Hebrew Character. The car thermometer read -6C when I set off at 08:30!!.

The moth trap running in the garden, I have never run a trap in snow before

View to the north from our garden

Heavy snow continued to fall

A snow covered trap

Pennington Marsh - 2nd, 3rd and 4th October

On 2nd October I was surveying near to Christchurch and couldn't resist quickly popping into Pennington Marsh on my way to site for a quick try for the Long-billed Dowitcher that had been present since 23rd September. In addition, I had just purchased the Swarovski ATX 85 with a TLS APO DSLR digiscoping adaptor which was attached to my Canon 7d Mark 2 and wanted to trial the scope and the digiscoping set-up. I was on site at around 09:00 and bumped into Pete Durnell, a friend of 31 years and the site warden, we had a bit of a chin-wag and then I headed off with time to bird Shoveler Pools and Fishtail Lagoon only. The usual range of birds was present with the highlights being the Long-billed Dowitcher, although this showed rather distantly at the back of Fishtail Lagoon, and a single Spotted Redshank.

I was back at Penningtoon on the morning of the 3rd with around four hours available so I wandered a route around Shoveler Pools, Butts Lagoon and Fishtail Lagoon taking my time in the early morning light and playing with the new set-up. Wildfowl numbers are starting to climb rapidly now with 25 Pintail, 30 Shoveler, 150 Wigeon and 225 Teal - most of these birds either juveniles or eclipse plumage males. My first Brent Goose of the year were present with 15 birds seen. Wader numbers were fairly low with the highlights being 15 Snipe, 3 Bar-tailed Godwit, 4 Spotted Redshank and the Long-billed Dowitcher again, this time asleep at at the back of Fishtail Lagoon and showing poorly. A single Tree Pipit flew high south overhead and around 250 House Martin and 30 Swallow were present in the area.

On the 4th October I took Tobias across on the Isle of Wight ferry to stay with his Grandad for a few days and on the return I stopped at Pennington Marshes again for an hour or so. Birds were much as yesterday. I counted 87 Coot on the Efford Lagoon, they really seem to like the lagoon with a big increase in numbers since this time last year, in addition there were 5 Mediterranean Gull and good numbers of commoner gulls, I scanned the flock for ringed birds but there appeared to be none. As I scanned Fishtail Lagoon I noticed the Long-billed Dowitcher a little closer to the path and feeding on the island in the middle of the lagoon with around 50 Redshank. The batteries on the 7D Mk2 had died so I hurried back to the car to grab my 1DX and 400 DO Mk2 with 1.4 extender, this is my favourite photography combo. A rattled off a few shots but the Redshank, being the nervy birds they are, took flight taking the Dowitcher with them.

So, these are the best of the ATX85 and Apo plus 7D Mark 2 combo tested early in the morning when the light is perhaps not the best giving a rather orange cast. I am fairly pleased with the results, my favourite image being the Mute Swan. I used the camera on TV setting with the shutter speed at 800-1200th and ISO at 800 and played around with the zoom on the scope. The bottom four images were taken with my Canon 1DX, 400mm DO Mark 2 and 1.4x extender.

Greenshank in the early morning sun at Pennington Marshes. Taken with the ATX combo at 25x

Curlew in at Butts Bay, Pennington Marsh. Taken with the ATX combo at 35x

Mallard - Fishtail Lagoon. Taken with the ATX combo at 25x

Wigeon - Fishtail Lagoon. Taken with the ATX combo at 35x

Pintail - Fishtail Lagoon. Taken with the ATX combo at 45x

Mute Swan - Fishtail Lagoon. Taken with the ATX combo at 25x

Coot - Fishtail Lagoon. Taken with the ATX combo at 40x

Kingfisher in the early morning sun and fog. Taken with the ATX combo at 40x

Reed Bunting, female - Butts Lagoon. Taken with the ATX combo at 35x

Long-billed Dowitcher - Rather distant on Fishtail Lagoon. 1DX and 400 DO plus 1.4x extender

Long-billed Dowitcher - Rather distant on Fishtail Lagoon. 1DX and 400 DO plus 1.4x extender

Grey Heron - Fishtail Lagoon. 1DX and 400 DO plus 1.4x extender

Redshank - Fishtail Lagoon. 1DX and 400 DO plus 1.4x extender