gentilis minor

After at least four years without much joy of lesser spotted woodpeckers in the Brecks; Ive had flight views and heard it calling/drumming only in that period. Yesterday I went on my annual spring Brecks visit and connected with this cracking little woodpecker.
As seems to be the way recently, I left a few people watching the location that it has been seen recently in the hope of finding it somewhere else.... as soon as I went to water the plants it flew into the tree I was next to! It was drumming well and called a few times too, I forgot how soft the drumming was, you cant hear it at distance like a great spot. I watched it for around 10 mins and managed to phone someone who was at the other location and got them on it too.

Other good bits from the day included the great grey shrike, fantastic views of firecrest (but poor shots), two male goshawks displaying at close quarters (one with a few missing secondaries), a crossbill calling and a few mandarin ducks. I had such a nice day I may be tempted to another visit in a few weeks to catch up on the bits I didnt get time to look for, hawfinch, golden pheasant, stone curlew and woodlark to name a few missing.

(photo from previous visit)

Snow goose revisited

I have just been made aware of this bird in Dumfries and Galloway, the link takes you to a photo by Brian Henderson, which appears to show the same bird as that which I had in December at Buckenham. Its taken a lot longer than I thought but it appears 'my' bird has reappeared...finally!

http://www.rarebirdalert.co.uk/RealData/gallery_show.asp?galleryid=38818&page=1&sort=4&SpeciesID=1630.1


To compare; (including a flight shot of it leaving roost at dawn, never to be seen again, until now??)

Early Feb

January was a fairly decent month for birds on the patch, the Siberian Chiffchaff's reappearence being the highlight. I managed to finish the month on 98 species, however missed Crane, Hen harrier and Brent goose, the former two I would hope to catch up with at some point in the year, the Brent howver is far more tricky!
The Marsh harriers are begining to look like they have changed their behaviour and are now setting up territories and the returning males are statring to display on calm clear mornings. The skylarks at Buckenham are belting out their song whatever the weather and the number of plants in flower is quite amazing for the beging of Feb, so spring cant be too far round the corner can it?

I have not done a round up of 2015.... yet, I may do a brief write up soon.

2016 for me will be year of the moth. I intend to do more trapping on (and off, but mostly on) the reserve this year and will be trying to go mobile with actininc more frequently too. Other resolutions for this year are to get to grips with caterpillars (if thats possible?) and to start looking at leaf mines and trying to identify those, probably not an easy task, but there is a good website for helping. A final resolution is to confirm the micros I think I'm seeing. Last year I got some goodies, however they needed to be confirmed by dissection so they have been left off of the Norfolk records database, a slightly frustrating occurance, but understandable in todays age of true science and recording.
So that should keep me busy May-October and of course there will be birding in the daytime as per usual. As yet no autumn trips planned but a week on the edge of Arne in July should be nice!

I managed a photo of a water pipit on Friday, these have been seen very frequently all winter from the riverbank, but it was nice to finally get one on the deck for long enough to photograph (at distance and cropped hard!). Water pipits are fairly common winter birds at the fen, in some years we have as many as 8+ on site, this year it appears that the peak has been 4, but more recently just 2 birds have been seen regularly.

Siberian Chiffchaff -Back Again

An early start this morning secured three noteworthy birds, the first was a drake Pochard, this is the first I have seen at the fen this year. The second I did not clinch but sounded like an interesting bird I would like to see. The third was given away by the classic peep call; a Siberian Chiffchaff, I was tipped off about its presence yesterday (thanks!). It is the same individual that I found on 23rd December and funilly enough is in almost exactly the same spot too, so where has it been for a month?!
The bird is far from a classic Sibe and shows far more of a yellow hue than I would expect, however current thinking is that the call is perhaps the one most important feature and this one certainly had the right call (thank god!). It was in company of a common chiffchaff too so it was good to compare the sounds. Unfortunately they were both calling from the same area when I was taking pictures so I'm pretty sure this is the right bird! The bird with the yellow vent/flanks is the bird that was peeping! As Justin also commented on- the front half looks good, the rear not so good! If it were not calling I'm not sure I would give it the time it deserves! There was no sign of it a few hours later, so has it gone for another month?