Shetland - 11th October

With a heavy workload at present I have spent more time looking at pictures of all the latest rarities on Twitter, Facebook and Birdguides than actually looking for my own rares. Yellow-billed Cuckoo and Black and White Warbler on the Isles of Scilly, Least Bittern Farranfore, Co.Kerry, Common Nighthawk Calgorm Co. Antrim and the amazing run of mega’s on Corvo including Hooded Warbler, White-eyed Vireo, Cape May Warbler and Prothontary Warbler on Corvo, Azores have been some of the highlights of an autumn dominated by a westerly airflow and American vagrants. The western areas of the UK have dominated the autumn rariety news while Shetland has had a relatively quiet season with the highlight being a Rufous-tailed Robin seen for five minutes on Fetlar and a possible Stejneger’s Stonechat on Unst, to date.

I had booked my visit to Shetland a little later than usual due to work and social commitments and so leading up to my departure on 11th I had been studying the weather charts on windy.com, it wasn’t looking great, a dominance of westerlies but for my weekend visit the winds were going north, north-east and east as a low pressure system moved east over north Scotland and into the Baltic regions with an east and then more north-east airflow coming off its northern edge. Some east in the system was encouraging but this was localised with the east flow only extending as far as Norway and the north Baltic area. Still, this was Shetland and there was always optimism.

My 07:05 flight from Heathrow to Aberdeen left on time and I arrived in Aberdeen at 08:10 I had a short wait until my 09:45 flight to Sumburgh which landed at 10:50. After collecting my car from Bolts Car Hire I drove straight to Grutness where I birded the beach and out to the obelisk on the headland. In the bay were Black Guillemot, a single Red-throated Diver and good numbers of Common Gull while on the headland I picked up my first Rock Dove, Twite, Merlin and a small flock of four Snow Bunting.

Snow Bunting - Grutness, Mainland Shetland

Snow Bunting - Grutness, Mainland Shetland

I then headed up to Garths Ness, beyond Quendale where a Short-toed Lark had been present since 4th October, I was told to sit in the car beside a patch of mud and the bird comes into this, I sat and waited but nothing and so I went for a short stroll around this beautiful headland. There were lots of Meadow Pipit in the grassland, Raven, a couple of Goldcrest around the ruined buildings and a Song Thrush on the cliffs. I eventually flushed the Short-toed Lark from the grassland and had brief flight views only. I then birded around the Quendale Mill area where a Common Chiffchaff, Siberian Chiffchaff, Blackcap and a Yellow-browed Warbler were the highlights. I was starting to flag and so went to the local store for snacks and a coffee.

Yellow-browed Warbler - Quendale, Mainland Shetland

Yellow-browed Warbler - Quendale, Mainland Shetland

I then headed to South Voe and birded the gardens around the Croft Museum where a Barred Warbler had been present. I scoured the gardens, which in places were dense, and had Chiffchaff, six Blackcap and a Merlin over. I decided to head off and as I drove south out of the village a couple of Whinchat beside the road made me stop, a movement below them and there low down in the dock was the Barred Warbler. I watched the bird for five minutes before it headed out across the fields towards the mill.

Merlin - South Voe, Mainland Shetland

Blackcap - South Voe, Mainland Shetland

 Barred Warbler - South Voe, Mainland Shetland

Barred Warbler - South Voe, Mainland Shetland

South Voe and the Croft Museum - Mainland Shetland

The light was beginning to fade and so I made one last stop at Netherton where 50 Redwing and 8 Fieldfare were the highlights. Two Harbour Porpoise were very close in shore at the bay. I headed for the hotel for a much needed cold beer and an early night.

Netherton, Sotuh Mainland

View from my room in the Lerwick Hotel

Alaska - 4th June (Day 8)

Today was to be a long day, we started at 06:30 and headed in to the Denali National Park, we were unable to enter the park until 10:00 so birded the 15 miles of accessible park before the main entrance gate. It was fairly slow going but we saw Grey Jay, White-crowned Sparrow, American Tree Sparrow, Wilson’s Warbler and Yellow Warbler. Denali Mountain, the highest peak in North America at 6190m and the only to exceed 6000m, was showing well even though located 76m from where we stood. The park has a system whereby one can only enter via a shuttle bus which takes you through the park as far as you want and you are able to hop on and off buses wherever you wish. However, this does mean that you are stuck on a bus with general tourists and the whole experience was somewhat painful so as soon as we got to Polychrome Mountain, about two hours into the park, we hoped off and spent the rest of our time here birding and enjoying the fantastic view. Highlights here were two distant Grizzly Bear, Northern Harrier, Peregrine of the race tundrius, Golden-crowned Sparrow and White-crowned Sparrow but the view was mind blowing and it was worth the journey just for this. We jumped on a 14:00 bus and were back at the park entrance by 16:15.

Moose - Denali National Park. This female had twin calves and we watched her at 

close range just outside the park entrance.

Moose - Denali National Park

Moose calf - Denali National Park

American Tree Sparrow - Denali National Park

The snow covered Mount Denali in the distance (approximately 70 miles away)

Arctic Ground Squirrel - Denali National Park

Denali National Park

Denali National Park

Denali National Park

Denali National Park

Denali National Park

Denali National Park

Denali National Park

White-crowned Sparrow - Denali National Park

White-crowned Sparrow - Denali National Park

Peregrine of race tundrius - Denali National Park

Mountain peak - Denali National Park

We had a 135 mile drive between Cantwell and Paxson along the Denali Highway. The route passes from spruce forest in the west to tundra in the east and as a result of this birding along this route is exceptional and so we made many stops the highlights being Red Fox Sparrow, Grey-cheeked Thrush, Blackpoll Warbler, Cliff Swallow, Greater Yellowlegs, Lesser Yellowlegs, Slavonian Grebe, Northern Shrike, Bufflehead, Willow Ptarmigan, White-crowned Sparrow and Merlin of the race columbarius. We eventually arrived at the Denali Highway Cabins just to the west of Paxson at 00:30.

Blackpoll Warbler - Denali Highway

Blackpoll Warbler - Denali Highway

North American Porcupine - Denali Highway

North American Porcupine - Denali Highway

Grey-cheeked Thrush- Denali Highway

Merlin of race columbarius - Denali Highway

White-crowned Sparrow - Denali Highway

Red Fox Sparrow - Denali Highway

Willow Ptarmigan - Denali Highway

Denali Highway

Links to the other days of the trip (click to view)

Day 1 – Background, international flights and Anchorage

Day 2 (Part 1) – Anchorage

Day 2 (Part 2) – St. Paul, Pribolofs

Day 3 - St. Paul, Pribolofs

Day 4 - St. Paul, Pribolofs

Day 5 - St. Paul, Pribolofs then fly to Anchorage

Day 6 –Seward

Day 7 – Kenai Fjords cruise then drive to Denali

Day 9 – Paxton Area of Denali Highway

Day 10 – Drive Paxton to Anchorage

Day 11 – Nome

Day 12 – Nome

Day 13 – Nome

Day 14 – Nome and travel to Barrow

Day 15 (Part 1) – Barrow

Day 15 (Part 2) – Barrow

Day 16 – Barrow

Day 17 – Barrow then travel back to Anchorage and international fli

Pipits and Pigeons at Pennington and Romsey

With a bit of free time this weekend I decided that a little birding was in order between house duties. On Saturday I had a short stroll around Pennington Marshes. Pennington Marsh is feeling decidedly wintery since my last visit on 11th and 12th October (http://thedeskboundbirder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/pennington-marsh-11th-12th-october-2012.html)  and the marsh to the south of Lower Pennington Lane is holding much surface water so numbers of birds here were large with approximately 250 black-tailed Godwit and many lapwing and golden plover. Duck numbers were high with over 1000 each of wigeon and teal and many pintail and shoveler. In the winter sunshine the ducks were displaying and the marshes echoed with the 'weeee-oooo' of wigeon and the soft piping of teal. Pintail too were getting into the spirit with their soft bubbling teal like whistle. Pintail, at close range are stunning ducks with their soft blue-grey vermiculated bodies, chocolate head and hind neck with a strap like spur of white extening up either side of the neck, shaggy golden and black scapulars and long fine black 'pin-tail' eminating from the greyish tail set within the jet black ventral area.

 

Northern Pintail (Male) - Photo by Terry Sohl (view Terry's massively 

impressive range of photographs here: http://sdakotabirds.com)

 
Ducks at this time of the year are an interesting mix of fine adult males and the young of the year approaching their first adult feathers with often strange conbinations of adult male and immature feathering, Wigeon can be particularly variable with a wide range in male plumage patterns but all ages seem to join in with bouts of display.

A female merlin was patrolling the marshes harassing the dunlin flocks and I watched her single out a dunlin from the main flock and pursue it for over a minute making repeated lunges just for the dunlin to perform a neat zig-zagging shimmy and elude the predator. Fortuitously, for the dunlin, the main dunlin flock passed close by and the pursued made a dive for the crowd, the Merlin realising that it was out gunned by numbers dropped like a stone to harass the meadow pipits and skylarks feeding below in the grasslands.

Amongst the pipits in the grassland I came across four water pipit feeding amongst the flooded grassland and rush beds. Water pipit is unusual in that those seen in the the British Isles in late autumn and winter have migrated northwards from mountaineous areas of southern and central Europe. These birds breeding in the short and flower rich grasslands and scree scattered slopes of the likes of the Alps and the Pyrenees decend to the more moderate climates of the lowlands of Europe to the north (including Britain), west and south and into northern Africa where they frequent freshwater marshes.

Water Pipit - Winter Plumage (Photo by Daniele Occhiatos', see more of
Daniele's stunning images at http://www.pbase.com/dophoto

 

On Sunday I walked from home onto the meadows between Sadler's Mill and Squabb Wood that constitute my 'very local' patch. I spent a short while at the 'viz mig watch point' which has great views over the River Test valley and enjoyed small flocks of lapwing, redwing, fieldfare and skylark moving north. However, most notable were the vast numbers of wood pigeon that seemed to be erupting out of the woodlands, and fittingly mostly from Squabb Wood, due to the local shoots. It was impossible to count the birds but I estimated approximately 2,000-3,000 birds present.

Populations of wood pigeon in the west are more sedentary than those in the east and those in the UK appear to travel only a short distance from their natal grounds. By contrast northern and eastern populations are more migratory with, for example, those from Scandinavia migrating south-west through Denmark, the Netherlands and into France while many of these continue and pass to the west of the Pyrenees to take advantage of the autumn acorn crop in Spain. While migration patterns through the UK are not fully understood it would appear likely that this wave of migrants passes through the UK explaining the large numbers recorded on the east and south coast in late Autumn. These birds probably account for those seen today above the beech and oak woodlands that line the Test Valley in which Romsey is located although, conversely, it is thought that continental birds pass through the UK rapidly accounting for the very small number of ringing recoveries of continental birds in the UK and thus these birds in Romsey could relate to aggregated British stock.While much maligned and overlooked, close study of woodpigeons reveals that they are quite stunning beasts but en-mass they provide a late Autumn spectacle that is hard to rival.

 

View of Romsey showing Romsey Abbey from my 'viz mig watch point'

above the Test Valley (S.Colenutt)