Ring Ouzel joy!

Easter Sunday saw me out and about after the morning rain, hoping to see migrants and as usual I started at the Lowestoft Oval cricket ground ever hopeful of finding a Ring Ouzel on there.

The first sweep of the pitch revealed little other than a group of 50 Wood Pigeon and 2 Pied Wagtails. Checking the Denes area already full of dogs and dog walkers I decided to recheck the Oval. Hearing and seeing 2 Willow Warbers singing away in the trees behind the Oval was a good start. I checked the Oval cricket ground again and this time there were 5 Pied Wagtails.

I scanned the Oval once again and was about to leave when I decided on one last look and immediately I spotted a female Ring Ouzel at the far east end of the Oval by the big white Cricket screen. Success at last, and how sweet it was, too!

The bird was female because it had brown and not jet black plumage and the lack of a lemon yellow bill of a male, but it was a smart, fine bird nonetheless.

Enjoying it for a few minutes, I then decided to ring Rob & Andrew who I knew must be around nearby.

Funnily enough, when I spoke to Andrew he said he was just walking along the Eastern or should that be Easton (pun intended!!) edge of the Oval and as he was so close to the bird the ringing tone of his mobile may well have spooked the bird as we couldn't find it when I joined him.

Andrew then spotted it feeding on the grass by the Tennis Courts before it flew over to the Tennis Courts where it had a brief snooze on the rocky ridge dividing the courts. As close as it could get the rocky screes in upland Britain where it breeds.

More people were starting to arrive and we were all eventually treated to very close views of the fantastic bird feeding again close to the white cricket screen. The Ring Ouzel, or Mountain Blackbird as it is known fed really well tugging at several worms before eventually gulping them down.

Corton comes up trumps again but Fisher Row decimated

A Good Friday afternoon visit to Corton New Sewage works produced little in the way of migrants save for a singing Chiff- Chaff. However, up to 15 Peacock, 2 Small Tortoiseshell and 5 Comma butterflies were seen in the area. 

Corton Old Sewage works weaved its magic once again this Spring, when I found a fine male White Wagtail, in the adjacent north field, I enjoyed the bird for about a minute, before it promptly flew south-east. A twittering Swallow flew just a few feet over my head and the 15 or so Sand Martins were buzzing above the cliff edge.

A Pied Wagtail perched on the southern fence of the old Sewage works compound provided a stark contrast to its continental cousin seen earlier.

A trip to Lound revealed 26 Barnacle Geese and a family party of 5 Egyptian Geese (2 adults & 3 very small goslings) and 2 overflying Swallows.

It was heartening to hear the distinctive calls of a pair of Bullfinches, aspecies that undertaken a rapid decline in the last decade both locally and nationally.

A very, very sad sight was of a dying young Grass Snake which had very recently been run over, languishing in the middle of the road, there was nothing I could do but move it to the side of the road. Such a pity.

An evening visit to Fisher Row, revealed more migrants with 5 singing Willow Warblers and 5 Blackcaps with one male showing quite well for a change. 2 Stock Doves were seen in a tree near the horse paddocks, with several Great Spotted (seen) & Green Woodpeckers heard. 

The hoped for Grasshopper Warbler was heard  singing its distinctive reeling song like the freewheeling on a bicycle or the reeling in of a fishing line.

However, the biggest shock was the number of trees and bushes (I would agree that 90% of the bush growth adjacent to the riverbank needed to be taken out) taken out at the river end with a desert of mud extending from the river bank north to about 50 metres towards the marsh. This work is being undertaken to stop flooding by the Broads Authority, but why do it on a nature reserve during the worst possible time; the breeding season? Why disturb the breeding birds and Voles at this time & why oh why cut the few remaining trees down? The prospects for seeing Cuckoos here will be diminished yet further, a bird that was a guarantee when visiting the Reserve in Spring/ Summer during it's heyday in the 1980's (when it had some trees!!!) 

Lesser Golden Plover: Pacific or American?

The Easter holiday got off to a very good start, when I successfully twitched a bird at Breydon Water (I usually dip birds on Breydon, so this was a pleasant surprise!) a Pacific or American Golden Plover. These birds can sometimes be difficult to separate. The bird is moulting into summer plumage and compared to Golden is quite pale with golden speckled back, dark greyish cap (more a feature of American) with the grey extending down the nape narrowing slightly before joining the mantle. It had a pale whitish face with darker area behind its eye slightly kinking downwards. It also had a pale breast with slightly greyish wash on its breast sides. It had a longer legs and in flight this was clearly noted as the feet could be seen projecting just beyond the tail. 

This feature may well favour Pacific Golden Plover. In flight, it of course, showed grey axillaries and not white as in Golden Plover. Assessing tertial length is crucial to ascertaining the ID of the bird, sadly one side were moulted and the other were not. Sometimes, the bird looked at times quite plump and the legs not particularly long. But it was noticably smaller than Golden and appreciably smaller than 2 very close Grey Plovers. The Plover showed well as it fed on a grassy spit, reasonably close to us but not close enough for me to photograph sadly, so no picture this time. The jury is still out on the specific ID of this bird.

The bird attracted an appreciative crowd of about 20 birders who also spotted 1 Sandwich Tern, c300 Black- tailed Godwits, 5 Golden plover, 20 Grey plover, 3 Avocet and a Sanderling and a Large White butterfly.

Coo, aren't they cute!

Following on from yesterday's blog, we had not one, but two fledgling Collared Doves sitting in the Gorleston Library car park. Initially, one was spotted in the passageway and was soon moved to a safer area under some nearby steps where it was soon joined by another!

Originally a bird from Central Asia, the Collared Dove undertook a rapid range expansion west across Europe in the first half of the twentieth century and first bred in the UK at Cromer in North Norfolk in the mid 1950's, they soon colonised the rest of the country and they are now a common sight in urban/ surburban gardens and even Library car parks!

I was little concerned that they might be taken and predated by nearby Herring & Lesser Black- backed Gulls who stood on a nearby roof.

With a second "bite of the cherry", I was finally got my shots. These immature birds, obviously just out of the nest, were being fed regularly by their parents who were flying in and out regularly. Pictured is the youngest bird with its egg tooth still visible. At one stage in the afternoon they had gone and then they were back and finally at the end of the day there was only one!

Red hot Corton!

Corton Old Sewage works came up trumps again today, when Neville S found a fine Great Grey Shrike there. Thanks for the call, Neville. Barely a week since the Hoopoe was found there (and funnily enough, the last Hoopoe I saw in Lowestoft was in Neville's garden!), Corton Old Sewage works is turning into THE Lowestoft hot spot this Spring. I arrived after work and had a 45 minute window in which to see it, due to a talk I was due to give that evening for Sea Palling Women's Institute. Initially it looked as if I might dip, as the bird had dropped down into the compound an hour previously and not been seen since, the inference being it had flown off undetected.  After I had just left Dick refound the bird and a very big thank you to Roger for kindly giving me the all important call; and I was able to dash back and enjoy 5 minutes of this wonderful Great Grey Shrike. A fine Swallow also fleew overhead.

Earlier in the afternoon, I was surprised  to see a very tame fledgling Collared Dove in the Gorleston Library car park, it appeared dazed and sat on the tarmac close to the boundary wall.

I can only assume it had flown into the wall and stunned itself! After putting some crushed Rich Tea biscuit and some water close by, the bird fed and watered itself. It soon started to perk up and after preening it must have flown off as there was no sign of it, when I checked on it 10 minutes later.

I could have kicked myself from here to Corton (probably a good idea, as I might even have found a rarity!) as I hadn't taken my camera with me (due to the aforementioned talk) so sadly no pics of this bird, but instead a pair of adult Collared Doves taken in the garden in May 2008. 

Missing the 3R's, but Butterflies & Hares to the rescue

Missing the 3 R's, not Reading 'riting & 'rithmetic but a very, very poor weekend for birds personally having missed another local Raven this time at Ashby, a Red Kite and dipped a Ring Ouzel at Easton Bavents sheep paddocks. Overflying Cranes were also dipped and it was particularly galling to think they may have flown over the garden!

3 Buzzards near Herringfleet flying in a spiral at one point and an elusive (so elusive I didn't see it!) male Blackcap singing at Somerleyton were the only avian titbits on offer this Sunday.

Much better were the posey Butterflies in the garden, first a Comma, then a Small Tortoiseshell and then 2 Peacocks fed from the Aubretia flowers which are nicely in bloom at present.

Compensation for missing the Ring Ouzel came in the form of 4 splendid Brown Hares sitting in 2 adjacent fields near the turn off to Sotterley from the A12.

A quintessentially English mammal, the English Brown Hare was even described long ago by the Roman historian Cassius Dio.  In his Roman Histories in describing Boudicca, the Iceni Queen who led the Boudiccan revolts, he states she "employed a species of divination, letting a Hare escape from the fold of her dress; and since it ran on what they (the Iceni- the Celtic tribe that occupied Norfolk & North Suffolk) considered the auspicious side" this was seen as a sign by Andraste (an Iceni Celtic God) for the Iceni tribe and other local tribes to rebel against the tyranny of Roman occupation and head south to overthrow Roman occupied Camulodinum (Colchester in Essex)!

Spring has Sprung!

There was a lot of activity in the garden today with regular visits by a pair of Long-tailed Tits which must be nesting nearby. Great Tits, Blue Tits, a Magpie, Wood Pigeon, 2 Jackdaws, a Robin and an overflying "rattling" Mistle Thrush all put in visits too. A Willow Warbler sang briefly from the grounds of the Parkhill hotel, my first record of this species for the year. However, prize for the best songster heard from the garden must be go to the fine Skylark singing from high up in the sky, no wonder it was inspiration for the "Lark Ascending" music by Vaughan Williams.

Around the ponds, a female Common Frog appeared almost to "sunbathing" in the warm spring sun half in and half out of the goldfish pond, whilst a drab Peacock butterfly newly emerged from it's winter slumbers settled sleepily on the garage wall.

Several Honey Bees and a White- tailed Bumble Bee pollinated some early flowers out in bloom and the first of my wild Primroses were flowering too.