michaellis delays beer

Heading down the Barton cutting for Silsoe with a pint of Wherry beckoning, the beer had to take temporary second place to the sight of my first bit of ploughing of the autumn. Pulling up it was clear that a good flock of gulls was feeding and roosting on the fields and after a few barren minutes I was able to pull out an adult and sub-adult Yellow-legged Gull amongst a hundred or so Lesser Blackbacks and five Herring. So one for the SFYL and a site now found to check over the weekend for a Med or a Caspo. I did find an adult Med Gull around this time a few years ago on a field at the top of this hill opposite Streatley so feeling confident... just as likely to find a juvenile these days with so many in the UK

Pegsdon: Autumn Visits 1 Migrants 1

Last Sundays start to autumn did not materialise as a result of being asleep in bed so it was this Saturday for the off. So far a 100% hit rate. After spending half hour or so around the side and top of Deacon Hill I decided to move off and was almost 200yds south beyond the lone tree and the hole, scanning the terrace below, when I heard a keen "hueet" behind me, which sounded interesting. So a quick run across the top to a position to be sunny side of the bush tops and a nice male Redstart was revealed. The calling and prominence of the bird on the bush top suggested it had just come in and it was not long before it moved from the east side of the hill towards the trig point, where I could not locate it, so I can only assume it had flown on westward somewhere. Maybe starting to get some of the luck that eluded me during searches for waders in the spring.

Autumn starts tomorrow

Not a lot to report from me the last few weeks as birding activity has been somewhat put on the back burner in an attempt to build the value of brownie points in time for the autumn by getting wom jobs done. Will be out tomorrow on the hills with my first attempt on the returning passerines and maybe a fly over.
My only real autumnal find of the year so far was a group of nine Shelduck flying south over Luton early-ish morning on 6th July between rain showers, presumably a movement from the north of England to the moulting grounds. Not one for the SFYL though which would have benefited more from a couple of Curlews  but the flight of Shelduck is more bizarre, more interesting and certainly more memorable.

RCP

While ‘bioblitzing’ at MVCP on Saturday I bumped in to a pretty scruffy drake Red-crested Pochard.  He was a real crowd pleaser for all those present on my bird walk late afternoon with everyone keeping tabs on where he went.  Otherwise fairly quiet during the day, with other highlights mostly being breeding stuff – confirmed Common Terns, Lesser Black-backs, and the only breeding Black-headed Gulls in the county this year.  Also found a female Pochard with four ducklings on my way out of the site, which was nice.

What next I wonder?

'Grinning!

I've taken my time to get one of these on the SFYL and wasn't finding a tickable one at my usual haunts. So good to find one flying to a pylon south of Duloe. Still need it for my house list, less than a mile away.

Big and purple

Well bloomin’ heck!  I was only showing Darren the vismig potential of the Boughton End picnic site when I glanced over at Broggy.  And there it was flapping down the lake – a big cinnamon brown bird with blackish wing-tips.

“There’s a heron flying over Broggy – sh!t!  It’s a Purple Heron!!”

Even at the distance we were viewing from (and only using bins) we could easily see it was orange. Luckily it was flying below the horizon as if had gone in to the clouds we would probably have been none the wiser.

It flew down the lake to the southern end, before starting to circle.  Unfortunately, it was drifting away from us and was getting harder and harder to see against the trees in the background.  We both eventually lost it and phoned a few people in case it dropped in to anywhere local.

Totally unexpected and totally awesome.  That is never a bird I expected to get on my SFYL this year!

Night time noseying about

I went into a couple of reedbed areas in the brick pits after dark friday night. It was something I had meant to do for a couple of years but with mouth-watering SFY ticks possible such as Savis and Spotted Crake, it was long overdue and I will probably go in again later in the month.  Needless to say I did not get this pair but an estimated four pairs of squealing Water Rails were actually SF ticks for the year as my normal search places in the south in winter were both too dry to hold any of them. One pit had a singing Nightingale continuously for an hour and Barn and Tawny Owls also heard. Now I am wondering what was that heron sp. that I flushed from the reeds in the early hours of this morning ?