Martin Down and Bentley Wood - 23rd May

On a beautiful sunny morning I visited Martin Down National Nature Reserve primarily to see Burnt Orchid, now in its peak flowering period. Parking in the car park off the A354, on opening the car door I immediately heard the beautiful soft purring of a Turtle Dove, the bird showed well in the scrub adjacent to the car park as it sat atop a Hawthorn and undertook frequent display flights. From the car park I headed directly to the Bockerly Dyke and walked southwards. The sound of Corn Bunting, Sky Lark and Yellowhammer filled the air and my first Cuckoo called distantly. Butterflies were abundant with good numbers of Small Blue, Common Blue and Dingy Skipper and smaller numbers of Adonis Blue, Grizzled Skipper and Green Hairstreak. I soon reached the area for the Burnt Orchid and found around 10 nearly pristine examples. Wandering back towards the car I spent some time with the small colony of Marsh Fritillary that occur just north of the main mound of the firing range. I came across around 10 males and a freshly emerged female, these are stunning butterflies and one of my favourite British species.

Burnt Orchid - Martin Down NNR

Burnt Orchid - Martin Down NNR

Burnt Orchid - Martin Down NNR

Field Fleawort - Martin Down NNR

Crosswort - Martin Down NNR

 Grizzled Skipper - Martin Down NNR

Adonis Blue - Martin Down NNR

Green Hairstreak - Martin Down NNR

Marsh Fritillary - Martin Down NNR

Marsh Fritillary - Martin Down NNR

Turtle Dove - Martin Down NNR

Yellowhammer - Martin Down NNR

Yellowhammer - Martin Down NNR

Corn Bunting - Martin Down NNR

I then headed the short distance to Bentley Wood where I spent an hour or so in the Eastern Clearing. Here a very obliging and freshly emerged Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary was conspicuous amongst the more worn and more abundant (c.15) Pearl-bordered Fritillary. A couple of rather tatty Marsh Fritillary and a Grizzled Skipper were also present. However, the highlight was a stunning fresh Narrow-bordered Bee Hawk which showed very well, it appeared to have just emerged and spent some time perched low in the vegetation before vanishing at high speed and with a deep humming sound.

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Eastern Clearing, Bentley Wood

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Eastern Clearing, Bentley Wood

Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Eastern Clearing, Bentley Wood

Narrow-bordered Bee Hawk - Eastern Clearing, Bentley Wood

16th-18th May - Martin Down and Pennington Marsh

The last couple of weeks have been manic at work with some very early starts for breeding bird surveys, late nights reviewing documents and getting the company ready for the new and extremely tedious General Data Protection Regulations which come into force later in May. However, I have managed to get out a little to protect my sanity.

Note - 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 for Martin Down and here for Pennington Marsh. I have retained the sonograms from these recordings on this post.

On the morning of 16th May I visited Marin Down on the north Hampshire and Wiltshire border to complete my Nightingale survey as organised by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, alas, there were no Nightingale. Martin Down has experienced a catastrophic fall in population from 24 singing males in 1980 to none now, there cannot have been a change in the extent of scrub, this is a National Nature Reserve and there has probably been an increase rather than a reduction in scrub cover. So surely this local and the national decline is linked to changes in the wintering grounds or something happening along the migration routes rather than localised habitat loss/change in the UK. Still, there were lots of Corn Bunting (at least 15 birds recorded) and the first Turtle Dove that I have seen in the UK for many years with at least six 'purring' birds. Here, also were an amazing density of Skylark and it was difficult to estimate the number of birds but my best guess was 30 birds in all. It was a little windy for butterflies and the only species I recorded was a single Green Hairstreak, my first of the year.

Corn Bunting - Martin Down, Hampshire

Corn Bunting - Martin Down, Hampshire

Turtle-dove - Martin Down, Hampshire

Green Hairstreak - Martin Down, Hampshire

Invertebrate surveys with Adam Wright on 17th May near to Fishbourne, Chichester area produced a few first spring records for me although we recorded nothing of great excitement. White-legged Damselfly, Beautiful Demoiselle, Banded Demoiselle and Hairy Hawker were nice species to see as always.

The hoverfly Platycheirus rosarum - Fishbourne, Chichester

The hoverfly Helophilus pendulus - Fishbourne, Chichester

The hoverfly Cheilosia albitarsus - Fishbourne, Chichester

The snipefly Rhagio scolopacea - Fishbourne, Chichester

On 18th May I had a short wander around Pennington Marsh, it was fairly quiet with the highlights being two male Ruff almost in summer plumage, 25 Dunlin, two Peregrine over the site, three Whimbrel, 15 Great-crested Grebe (this seemed to be a large number for a May visit) and two very late Wigeon. Numbers of migrant birds seem to be very low and I only recorded three Whitethroat and four Reed Warbler of the breeding species. Singles of Cuckoo and a Lesser Whitethroat seemed to be birds holding territory on site.

Reed Warbler - Pennington Marsh, Hampshire

Single song sequence of Reed Bunting - Pennington Marsh, Hampshire


Lesser Whitethroat - Pennington marsh, Hampshire


Sequence of Lesser Whitethroat song with a rattle to begin with followed by warbling notes - Pennington Marsh, Hampshire

Sequence of Lesser Whitethroat song starting with the rattle then a sequence of warbling notes and ending in a rattle - Pennington Marsh, Hampshire

There were high numbers of Great-crested Grebe for a May visit - Pennington Marsh, Hampshire

Extremadura - 19th January (Day 4 of 4)

The final day and up at 07:00 for a 07:30 breakfast, packed the bags and headed towards Embalse de Arrocampo in the dark. A short way from La Aldea del Obispo we passed over the  Rio Marinejo and in the half light I spotted an Otter swimming upstream towards the road, we slammed on the breaks, turned and drove back but by the time we got back there was no sign, I wound down the window and heard the characteristic whistle of an Otter but we could not see it. We headed of to Arrocampo where a patchy fog hung over the ponds and wet fields. We first went to hide 2 and waited for the sun to rise, in the 45 minutes we spent here birds seen included Purple Gallinule, Bluethroat, Water Pipit and a heard only Penduline Tit. The view was quite spectacular with the snow covered Sierra de Gredos Mountains in the distance but rather unsightly factories and pylons in the foreground. We headed off to an area of fields and scattered Holm Oak where Black-winged Kite occurs but after 1.5 hours driving this area we had no luck, highlight was stunning views of a male Penduline Tit which showed down to 5m or so. Other birds here included Green Sandpiper and the usual field species such as Spotless Starling, Crested Lark, Corn Bunting, White Stork, Zitting Cisticola, Cattle Egret and Iberian (Southern) Grey Shrike. We decided to head for hide 5 where Bittern had recently been seen and Ricardo had also seen Black-winged Kite and as we approached the hide the in front of us hovering was a stunning Black-winged Kite, the bird hovered and then flew a wide circle around us before disappearing into the distance. A short watch at hide 5 produced the usual range of common wetland birds and then it was time to head for the airport. The final bird of the trip as we drove into Madrid was Monk Parakeet. I checked in for my 15:45 flight and relaxed in the airport lounge for a couple of hours and tallied the trip list, a total of 117 species and four lifers - Great Bustard, Spanish Imperial Eagle, Iberian Green Woodpecker and Iberian Azure-winged Magpie.

Spotless Starling, a singing bird at Embalse de Aracampo

Spotless Starling at Embalse de Aracampo

Cattle Egret at Embalse de Aracampo

Corn Bunting at Embalse de Aracampo

White Stork at Embalse de Aracampo

Male Penduline Tit at Embalse de Aracampo 

Male Penduline Tit at Embalse de Aracampo

Black-winged Kite at Embalse de Aracampo

Crested Lark at Embalse de Aracampo

Zitting Cisticola at Embalse de Aracampo

Here are the links to the other days of the trip:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Extremadura Birding - 16th January (Day 1 of 4)

I have been saving my birding brownie points this year for a few short foreign trips to add some ticks to my world list. First up was a long weekend to Extremadura for a few European tarts ticks and some recent splits with a potential four ticks on the cards, these were Spanish Imperial Eagle, Iberian Green Woodpecker, Great Bustard and Iberian Azure-winged Magpie. In addition I was keen to see Little Bustard which I have seen only once before (distant views of the Sopley bird on 1st January 1987), Black-bellied and Pin-tailed Sandgrouse and Black-winged Kite. Plus of course a range of other species such as Black Wheatear, Thekla Lark, Calandra Lark, Eagle Owl etc.

Logistics
I was to be birding alone so to make life easier for driving, finding sites, seeing birds and general logistics I decided to hire a private guide. I contacted Santi Villa at Spain Birds who recommended that I use one of their guides, Richardo Montero, on a private basis. Ricardo operates Extremadura Birding and he made all the ground arrangements and did all the driving, he charged 200 Euros per day and was excellent, he knew the sites for the birds and had up to date information on the interesting birds to see. His English is moderate (far better than my Spanish) and while there were moments when we struggled to understand what each other was saying we got by fine. I would definitely recommend Richardo as a guide to the area. His details are:

Ricardo Montero
Email: extremadurabirding@yahoo.es

Website: www.extremadurabirding.com

16th January
I was up at 04:00 this AM and left home at 05:00 for my 09:15 flight from London Heathrow to Madrid operated by Iberian Air. I arrived at the airport in good time and spent a couple of hours relaxing. The flight left on time and I arrived in a sunny but cold Madrid at 11:45 local time, Madrid being one hour ahead of UK time. I met with Ricardo and we headed out through the sprawling suburbs of Madrid seeing Red Kite, White Stork, Griffon Vulture, Spotless Starling, Iberian (Southern) Grey Shrike and Black Redstart as roadside birds. First stop was at Caleras y Chozas, an uninspiring looking area of arable and fallow land dotted with silos, grain processing factories and derelict buildings but with a back drop of the snow capped Sierra de Gredos mountains in the distance. The first stop produced a field rammed with Spotless Starling, Corn Bunting, Rock Sparrow, Spanish Sparrow, Sky Lark and Crested Lark and as we drove it became apparent that these fields supported a large number of birds - numbers not seen in UK farmland. We birded by driving and stopping this area and the next stop was an insignificant road junction, where Ricardo had previously seen Black-bellied Sandgrouse. As I got out of the car I almost immediately spotted a flock of birds in the adjacent field, what were they, it didn't click, Golden Plover, no, bloody hell, Little Bustards, Ricardo counted approximately 250 birds. We watched for a while as they went about their business and then, as is a birders will, we tried to get better views by driving down the road past the birds, turned the car and then came back to them to get some better light. We stopped, I ran off a few shots and up they went with a peculiar whistling/buzzing sound to their wings, they climbed and gave superb views as the entire flock passed over head. Stunning! We continued our drive around the field seeing more of the same passerines, adding Sardinian Warbler and Zitting Cisticola to the list. A lunch stop was due and Ricardo produced a superb Iberian ham sandwich and while I ate and scanned I picked up a distant group of 14 male Great Bustard. Again we tried to manoeuvre to get better views but these birds were distant in the middle of fields. They eventually took flight, not as a result of us, and disappeared from view - I bookmarked this species for better views.

We then headed off to the Holm Oak clad hills near to Valdecanas del Tajo where we spent the last two hours or so of daylight birding. In this area the main target was Black Wheatear and after a while we eventually found a cracking male singing high up on a rock face. Other birds here were rather fleeting views of Iberian Azure-winged Magpie, Crag Martin, Rock Bunting and Serin amongst a range of common woodland species. A small cave produced 12 roosting Greater Horseshoe bat at eye level.

As it got dark we headed off to our accommodation, Casa Rural el Tenado in the village of La Aldea del Obispo and much needed dinner, glass of red wine and bed.

Male Little Bustard - Caleras y Chozas

Part of the flock of Little Bustard which numbered around 250 birds - Caleras y Chozas

Part of the flock of Little Bustard which numbered around 250 birds - Caleras y Chozas

Corn Bunting - Caleras y Chozas

Black Wheatear in quarry at Valdecanas del Tajo 

Here are the links to the other days of the trip:

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4