Patchbirding. It's all about eagles and weasels.

Well a quick trawl through an old BOU checklist (a year 2000 one with annoying names like Hedge Accentor and Little Plover) and I reckon that without breaking too much sweat there are 138 species that should easily appear in the village this coming year.

There is a saying that I like - "Eagles may fly high, but weasels don't get sucked in to jet engines". This predicted list very much falls on the side of the weasel. I have only allowed for one diver and one scarce grebe, for example. Duck-wise, Scaup should make a show, but I have held fire on Long-tailed Duck even though there is one hanging around on the estuary presently. All the sawbills have shown up over the last couple of years, so I have stuck my neck out for the same in 2013.

I have yet to see Osprey in Stutton, even though they are annual around here. Peregrine and Hobby are on the list, but Merlin is a long-shot. The only real hope of Hen Harrier will be down at Stutton Mill on the parish boundary with Brantham.

Grey Partridge - forget it.

All the waders should be in the bag by 2nd January, with the exception of the migrant species. Little Stint, Curlew Sandpiper, Spotted Redshank and Wood Sandpiper are never the easiest on the whole estuary, let alone just in Stutton. LRP should fall and I hope that a Whimbrel or two will announce their presence. The only BB rare wader on the estuary in my time was the '06 Long-billed Dowitcher.

I haven't seen a phalarope or skua here in ten years and white-winged gulls are also gloriously absent. But there lies the challenge. Writing this, really does sharpen the focus. It makes me want to get out there now and scan that small gathering of gulls in the middle of the reservoir (if it was light of course) that I have been studiously ignoring recently. I would settle for a Franklin's mind.

The White-winged Black Tern that appeared this autumn was a bonus tern and I confess that I did twitch it (shame on me, but it was in the parish and less than a mile from the house). I am only expecting Common and Little as gimme's.

I have been bold in adding Turtle Dove, as these are now genuinely scarce around here and sadly, I don't think that it will be long before Cuckoo is pencilled rather than penned on to the list. Unless the local gamekeeper lets me know about a Long-eared Owl roost, the owl sp. list will be an easy three with a possible fourth being Short-eared.

It is when we get to the small stuff, that things get tricky. I still need Ring Ouzel and Stonechat for the village and even Wheatear won't come easy. I am struggling to think how I will connect with Willow or Garden Warbler and keeping my fingers crossed that Cetti's make one final push to the reedbed down at Stutton Mill. I know they are about half a mile from there.

There won't be any shortage of Nightingales - there were 33 territories around the reservoir this spring, but Nuthatch and Lesser Spotted Woodpecker are in the 'two hopes' category.

A shrike would be a chance find. There was an October Great Grey Shrike in 2010, but the only Red-backed was further east at Erwarton a few years before then.

Tree Sparrows have been wintering for the last couple of years and I have boldly decided to put them on my weasel list. Whilst that would be great to see, the chance of a Corn Bunting is up there with the Eagles.

This is a great invention. If you are a birder/twitcher reading this, get a patch sorted out and get signed up. Most importantly, get all your records on Birdtrack. It is the simplest way that your observations can help with the conservation of those birds that have brought you so much joy yesterday, today and for the rest of your life. 

Patchwork Challenge - Go Stutton!

It is been ages since I kept a year list (1999 if memory serves me right) and probably about the same time since I have worked on keeping a British list. I was finding twitching a fairly tedious exercise and surprisingly, when I started in my current job working for a large wildlife conservation charity, my interest diminished further. Spare time could have played a part as well of course. Tucked away on the PC though is a British and Stour Estuary list (two shy of 200 with recent addition of Sanderling and Mandarin), so I suppose the vestiges of a 'list bug' is lingering.

We are now in our third year living in Stutton and I have never kept a parish list. Nowadays, my active birding is mostly spent within the confines of the village, with the occasional foray down to Mistley Walls across the border in Essex. The place comes alive in the winter and on New Year's Day 2011 a three-quarter strength attempt at a day-list brought in a respectable 76 species. I think I had another day of birding the village ten days later and that was it. The parish-list fell off the list. The arrival of a small child may have played a part as well.

So, my thanks to Patchwork Challenge. I accept your offer. My first attempt at drawing a map came in under 3sq.km at 2.996sq.km! All luck, no judgement. Reservoir and estuary feature strongly and are easily accessible, but migrants are going to require much more time and effort, both of which may be in short supply come the spring with number two due then. I know that Sedge Warbler is going to be tricky, but in contrast all three divers should be possible. Mediterranean Gull would be a village first for me, whilst skuas never make it this far up the estuary (or indeed in my ten years here - never on the estuary). I shall have to go through the list in more detail, draw up some predictions and get birding done.

Tree Sparrow

The Tree Sparrow flock is still in residence in the village. Liz Cutting has taken some excellent images of these obliging birds. I think this is the best one.

Waxwings - still not boring

 

Waxwing drinking - photograph by Tony Fox

 

Another fantastic picture from Waxwing-spotter-Chief Tony taken this morning at Alton Water in the Dog Rose Forest just east of Larch Wood. There were 20 birds today. He also tells me that their garden Tree Sparrow flock has increased to five. Great news all round.

Boring, boring Waxwings

Right, hope that got your attention. Boring, they are not. If ever you cease to be amazed when you see one of these beautiful creatures then can I suggest that you either a) take up a new interest, or b) have a blooming good think about what you want from life.

 

Waxwing - photograph by Tony Fox

 

An email popped up in my Inbox from Tony this morning, with this photograph attached. Better than most emails I receive. This was one of the 13 birds he had seen this morning at Alton Water just to the east of Larch Wood. I can only assume that these were the same birds as those that were up by the cafe last week. It was 2pm when I had the opportunity to cycle down to see if they were still around. Two o'clock on a grey and bitter-cold winter afternoon is never a great time to go looking for passerines, but Waxwings are normally a fairly obliging bird. I pulled up next to where I had seen the Smew last week (see earlier blog post). The little inlet was tight with duck (Teal, Wigeon, Shoveler) and a lone Redshank yodelled his disapproval at my appearance. I waited a minute, as I was surrounded by bush upon bush of Wild Rose which where brim full of berries. I am accustomed to seeing Rose bushes thinly scattered in hedgerows, this is more of a forest of roses. I made a mental note to come and enjoy the site in June when the bushes would be in flower. Things didn't seem too promising, given the general murk, gloom and cold, but after a moment my ears picked up on the briefest of trilling notes - or was it my head wanting to hear them? A couple of minutes passed and another brief trill. For the life of me, I couldn't see any in the bushes, which were all obligingly growing at head height. Then it occurred to me to try looking up! Sure enough, there they were sat in a willow tree. Perhaps they had been laughing at me, rather than calling to each other. They weren't all feeding at once, one or two would take it turns to descend for or a berry or two or take a drink from a puddle. I can't recall seeing a grounded Waxwing before - they are even more beautiful when you see them on the deck.

 

I can see the Smew from here.

I had a bit of time to do some birding today so took in some local spots.

The other half was venturing down towards Twickenham on a non-rugby related event with the boy and I had some free time. Back from the station, I got on the bike and headed down to Stutton Ness in search of the Long-tailed Duck that had been around for a couple of weeks. No joy. The force three north-westerly seemed to have pushed birds elsewhere - even Goldeneye were scarce. Non-birding highlights were some nice, bubbly clouds over Manningtree and talking to a bait-digger who had been there since 6am! Now that is dedication. He had a head-torch and enough rag and lugworm as a result to last him for two days of fishing. He was telling me that a 100 lugworm costs £20 at the moment and that may only last 3-4 hours.

Dedicated bait-digger at Stutton Ness looking west towards Manningtree

 

 

Holbrook Bay, with the remains of Graham's Wharf in the foreground

 

 

A foray down to Manningtree next and after doing a few errands in town, I was looking forward to taking in the rising tide at Mistley Walls. Regrettably, our friends at the Met Office had again failed to script the forecast correctly and my time coincided with some pretty heavy showers. I had to be content with some close-in Avocet at Mistley Quay. Usually, the flock - which has got to 200+ in recent times - is distant, but these birds were only 100 metres off the quay.

 

After lunch, Alton Water beckoned. I had seen the drake Goosander off Lemon's Hill Bridge on Wednesday, across the border in Tattingstone. There had been a couple of female Smew seen from the Larchwood Hides during the week and they were my target. On the way down Alton Hall Lane, on a recently ploughed field, there was a nice gathering of 200 Common Gulls. Unusual to see a flock of small gulls round here without a Black-headed Gull amongst them. (On the way back there were 300).

 

Common Gulls (honest) with the Royal Hospital School tower (Holbrook) in the distance



 

 

 

The hides were Smew-less, but there was a good-sized flock of 134 Pochard, outnumbering their Tufted cousins four-fold. As I cycled back, I bumped in to two birders who had just seen a lone female Smew and sure enough, minutes later, I was watching it in the company of two Coots on the Stutton-side of the border.

 

The 2x zoom on the Sony Super SteadyShot DSC-W80 is just not up to the mark when it comes to wildlife photography! The two black dots in the right foreground are the Coot, the Smew is to the right of the left-hand bird (honest).