Recent Local Birding

It's been a while now since my trip to Spurn and I'm birding locally again... 

I'll start off with this splendid male Snow Bunting which was seen around the summit of the Worcestershire Beacon, Malvern Hills, for around a week during late October. The Beacon has become a frequent stop-off point for the species; last year a female overwintered there. They often seem to be indifferent to passers-by and even dogs.

I'm pretty sure its an adult male, with the large white patch on the primary coverts, spade shaped greater coverts, thick brown edges to the tertials and the rounded tips to the tail feathers clinching it. 

The contrastingly pale mantle (upper back) with the brown of the scapulars (the feathers between the back and coverts) suggest that it is of the sub species nivalis, which occurs in Scandinavia and westwards into Greenland.

Snow Bunting's are a bird of extremely harsh environments where they are perfectly adapted to cope. Like other birds which are found in snow-covered environments, such as Ptarmigan, they have little 'trousers' (Ooops, there I go anthropomorphizing - they aren't trousers!!) of tufts of feathers, which protect their upper leg from the freezing cold. 

The days around 5th November are well-known among visible migration watchers (vismiggers) for the beginning of Woodpigeon passage. So, myself and a friend spent the next few mornings at our local vismig spot, Much Marcle Ridge. (I've written a whole blog post about local vismig which you can read by clicking here)

Our first 'woodie' session was exciting, with 23,550 through, hopefully a sign of things to come. 

Two days later passage reached its highest yet with 39,170 through, the highest ever Herefordshire record. There were 3 main lines which are viewable from Marcle Ridge - one in the valley between the ridge and the town of Ledbury, the second over the Cotswold Escarpment and May Hill and a third through South Herefordshire.

While the day was exciting, we thought that this was just the beginning.

However the numbers tailed off to just the low thousands during the next few day's passage.

Hopefully next year we'll be able to get to our 50K birds in one day, which we both were aiming for this year.

Some of you may know that I've started volunteering at WWT Slimbridge in Gloucestershire, with my main role being guiding visitors in the hides, pointing out birds to them and (attempting!) to answer any questions visitors have about the birds out on the reserve.

The flocks of Golden Plover are one of my winter highlights at the site with numbers usually reaching around 2,500 birds. Though on one occasion I counted 7246, all feeding in a huge flock on the Dumbles; the area between the estuary tower and the estuary. Lapwing are often with them, though usually in smaller numbers.

Slimbridge is famous for having good numbers of wintering Bewick's Swan, a winter migrant from Arctic Russia. However, in recent years, their numbers on the reserve have declined due to short-stopping; temperatures in Eastern Europe, where many of the migrating swans stop off, aren't sufficiently low enough to drive them onwards towards Britain, in search of food and more hospitable weather. So, instead, they overwinter in Eastern Europe and don't migrant across to Britain. 

The affects of this are already being seen, and it's happening fast - this year, their arrival date was the latest since 1969. Around 20 years ago numbers arriving at Slimbridge would often reach 200 birds or more, for 2023 the maximum numbers reached 112 birds. 

There had been a juvenile White-rumped Sandpiper on site for a number of days, so I was keeping an eye out for it on one of my volunteering stints up the estuary tower. My volunteering teammate and friend picked it up feeding around the edge of one of the pools - the bird was showing much better than this photo illustrates! 

I'd seen a non-breeding plumaged adult on the reserve in March so was familiar with the structure of the bird. The long wings and tail and overall 'drawn-out' look of the bird was by far the best way to separate it as distant from the several hundred Dunlin which it was mingling with. 

The White-rumped Sandpiper is an annual vagrant from America, and are usually blown off course during their Autumn migration between northern Canada and the south eastern coast of South America. 

Other birds of note I've seen at Slimbridge recently include a juvenile Pectoral Sandpiper, 2 Kittiwake (a 1st winter and an adult flew SW along the estuary), a late Little Stint, overwintering Spotted Redshank, a juvenile Brent Goose, 2 Whooper Swan, and a juvenile Knot...and the escaped Lesser White-fronted Goose, which is subject of some contention amongst local Slimbridge birders!

On the way back from one volunteering session I stopped off at Frampton Court Lakes, just 10 or so minutes up the road from Slimbridge, in the hopes of seeing the adult Great Northern Diver which had been seen there for the past couple of days. 

Just as I arrived, the GND appeared from out of the water around 50 meters away - I sat down on the jetty and waited, in the hopes that it might come a bit closer. A little while later, after diving and coming back up several times, it suddenly popped up just a few meters away! At this sort of range, the blood red eye and stunning plumage really stood out, something you'd never see if it was in its normal wintering habitat, miles out to sea.

Waterfowl numbers on my patch, Longdon Marsh, have increased since the floods came up. Teal are the most noticeable increase, with 4685 noted on my most recent visit. Longdon Marsh is one of the best places in the county to see large numbers of wintering Pintail, though numbers have declined in recent years.

Whilst scanning through one of the large Teal flocks on my monthly BTO Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS), I manged to pick out the drake Green-winged Teal which another local birder had found the day before. 

The main identification difference between Eurasian and Green-winged Teal is the white line along the flanks - on Eurasian the line is horizontal, whereas on Green-winged the line is vertical, making for a very distinctive looking bird.

Green-winged Teal is an annual vagrant from America, with around 50-150 birds recorded every year.

I'm finishing off this post with this short clip of 2 Waxwing which were around Malvern Link for a few days in late December. I'd visited the site the morning after they were reported but had no luck - however, after a tip-off from a friend I managed to see them there in the afternoon. I only saw them come down onto the Rowan to feed once and they flew away out of sight soon afterwards.

I was really pleased to have seen them and just 15 minutes drive away from my home.

The Waxwings took my 2023 Local Big Year list (made up of any species you saw in a 12km radius from your home) to 124 species, which for an inland area which doesn't have many migrants at all, isn't too bad! 

Some of my best local species this year have included Whooper Swan, Red-necked Phalarope, Garganey, Green-winged Teal, Black-necked Grebe, Waxwing, Grasshopper Warbler, Firecrest, Ring Ouzel and Snow Bunting.

And there we have it! Another year of local birding done and dusted...I wonder what 2024 will bring...