Norfolk - 19th-22nd Feb

 Iv'e just spent a few days birding Norfolk over this period and enjoyed some pleasent birding despite the cold and dull weather conditions. There were good number of waterfowl a variouse sites along the north coast including Pink-footed Geese a Long-tailed Duck and Red-throated Divers and lots of Scoter on the sea.

Marsh harriers were the commonest raptor by far and i saw four Cranes at Stubbs Mill early on the 20th. The 30-40 Snow Bunting at Salthouse were also good value.

 

Video of the Black-bellied Dipper, towards the end the bird is subtly singing!

However the highlight was certainly the Black-bellied Dipper at Thetford that was tricky to photograph only because of the low light levels. Otherwise its a perfect bird to photograph and video since its full of chaticter and very approchable.

Mid February

I’ve not been out a much over the last month but the patchlist is ticking over nicely and  I’m back where I should be covering Woolmer forest and ponds. The square also takes in Passfield Pond and some fields and farmland. I have most of the expected species ticked off so far and the best bird so far is probably Great-crested Grebe which is probably annual at Woolmer but not guaranteed. This years Patchlist table is here.
Many of the inland sites are hardly comparable, clearly Blashford will get tens more species than Woolmer but what makes it more interesting this year for me is that 1-2 other local birders are doing the same patch which make things a little more interesting and competitive!!

16th Jan - Pallas's Warbler

With some time to spare either side of midday today i spent a few cold few hours on the Berkshire border looking for the Pallas's Warbler that has been lurking among a tit flock along the river near Moor green lakes. I wasn't feeling very positive on arrival and bumped into a few other birders who returned negative reports. I need not have worried though as fairly quickly i located the bird among the first group of Long-tailed Tits i encountered and had some reasonable views. Over the next hour it went missing and i was able to relocate it again twice more, though views could have been closer and more prolonged i went away happy.

6th Jan 2013

Smew (Mergellus albellus)
Romsey

I won’t be getting out much other than locally for the next couple of weeks and like a few other birders  I've been doing my best to see the good birds on offer in Hampshire over the last few days.

Today ACJ and I arrived a Bickerley shortly after first light with a view to seeing the Great Egret that can apparently be seen at roost from the viewpoint by the brewery. Perhaps we were too late but we didn't get it here and later heard that it had been on the other side near Bickerly road at dawn… pants. GWE is always a bogey bird for me and seeing this returning bird never seems to run smoothly. It’s a nice site though and the Glossy Ibis was on show most of the time from the bridge.

The Bittern at Ivy Lake, Blashford was next on the list but things didn't look good as we arrived in the hide where condensation on the windows made viewing pretty hard work. Luckily Andy quickly picked out a Bittern off to the right from the open side window and I had good scope views of it eating a fish before it wandered off back into cover.

It was a long shot but we figured it was worth putting in a little time looking for the Dipper that had recently been seen near Bicton. It was needle in a haystack stuff frankly there is a lot of habitat and much of the land is private and flooded, Water Rail and Chiffchaff were new here though. The Bewick’s Swan was on the floods at Ibsley bridge and back at Bickerley for another bash at GWE the Ruff was on show as well as the Ibis but no sign of the Egret.

Romsey had Smew and Hawfinch to offer and it didn't disappoint with very good views of both species. So overall a good days Hampshire birding which finished with dusk at Chichester harbour entrance, Guillemot, Shag, GN Diver and Sandwich Tern were visible before dark.

The end of today’s trip out sees me on 118 species.
Here is my list!

5^th Jan

It had to be the Oysterbeds this afternoon as Scaup was on offer along with BN Grebe and Slav which I had yet to connect with this year. The Scaup (apparently a 2cy male) was visible out in the harbour but was frankly disappointingly distant and mostly asleep. Also in the harbour were Mergs, GC Grebe, LT Grebe, Slavs, BN Grebe and Goldeneye. Before dark I nailed Jack Snipe at a traditional site and after dark Barn Owl and Lt Owl also fell with relative ease before an evening in the pub!

Seeing Red (instead of golden)

With a couple of hours spare this afternoon I did a little local birding around the farmland and water bodies in the Kingsley and Binstead area. A Green Sandpiper on a flooded field was nice and I found three Grey Partridge relatively easily. The local Golden Plover flock was nowhere to be found but an unexpected Red Kite was excellent compensation. 2012 was the first year I have had multiply local records of Kites locally and this latest record suggests nothing has changed. They are still a novelty for me here and they are most welcome!

East Hampshire from top to bottom

Red-breasted Goose (Branta ruficollis) and
Dark-bellied Brent Goose (Branta bernicla bernicla)

With a free afternoon and a twitch feeling I was very temped to try and tidy up Divers and Grebes for the year list on Hayling Island today, particularly since a RN Grebe was present in Chi harbour and visible from Sandy Point. In the end however I opted to pop up north for the Waxwings near North camp station. I could see them in the trees as I arrived on site and had a quick check of the map to confirm that both they and I were inside Hampshire. No problem there but they were berry flicking distance from the border. I’d hardly parked when they flew off into Surrey and out of site, so not exactly my most satisfying Waxwing experience but they are on the year list none the less. At this point it was only 14:05 so I made a slightly out of character decision to find out that it only takes around 45min to get from North Camp to Farlington Marshes! This was not green birding but all the same by 16:00 I’d located the target Red-breasted Goose on the east side of the marsh and picked up Avocet among other  year ticks on the way.

Happy new year!

Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis) 
Walpole Park, Gosport 1-1-2013

Well it may be true that enthusiasm will diminish and other commitments will ensure that my name will slowly trickle down the table but I figured I may as well keep a Hants yearlist this year (I’ll be patch-listing too at Woolmer). So with that in mind I left the house before dawn this morning aiming to see the key birds on offer and with any luck get a reasonable day list as well. A change of year brought a change in the weather and there was barely a cloud in the sky all day!

First stop had to be the Glossy Ibis at Bickerley, a site I have never been to before. After a bit of faffing with a dodgy grid reference I arrived at the place I should have been on Bickerley road to view the floods where an unknown birder had the bird, nice. A quick text saw the ‘overreadies’ appear shortly after the bird disappeared. And then shortly after hearing they had relocated it, it got up high and flew off south where it was presumably the bird relocated at Stanpit in Dorset, I suspect foul play but I’m saying nothing :-)

The rest of the day was spent working my way back east where the highlights were Marsh Harrier at Titchfield, RB Gull at Gosport, Shag, GN Diver, Guillemot and SE Owl on Hayling Island. A wiz around some country lanes locally got me a Tawny Owl (sat on a branch within a meter of a roosting Pheasant!) to give me 89 species for the day.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/HantsBirds/

Followers of this blog may be interested to hear that there is now a Hantsbirds facebook group.

Hayling Island - 11th November

A pretty average day of November birding around the SE of Hampshire today but the weather was clear and sunny providing a nice light for photography. The best of some other pictures of common birds was probably this Kestrel that obligingly sat on a fencepost and allowed a close approach.

And here is a short video of some Sanderlings also taken on Hayling

Island today