28 years and finally unblocked

Certain things stick in your memory and a phone call from my Dad back in October 1984 from the Scillies, always has. He was phoning for his daily catch up with things at home as he was on his yearly birding trip to the Scillies and although I was only 8 at the time, I still remember crying when he told me he'd just seen a Common Yellowthroat on Bryher, worse was still to come when he phoned later in the same week to tell me he'd also ticked off Cliff Swallow. Still haven't got that one back yet, although I have tried, was only half an hour away from the Dorset bird when we got stuck in traffic and arrived too late, there'll be another but just might have to be a bit quicker off the mark next time.

Thursday 16th Feb and we had just arrived at Amy's favourite restaurant for a treat, Pizza Hut, then the MEGA alert went off on the phone - Common Yellowthroat Rhiwderyn, Gwent, well that put a downer on the rest of the evening although thankfully Amy didn't notice. I could have gone the next day but I'd already made plans to work - whoops!! Negative news on the Saturday morning in heavy rain came as something of a relief as the family had come down with a sickness bug. But then of course it was refound in the afternoon when the sun came out and a potential twitch was back on, just needed to hope it would hang around. It was still there Monday morning when I left for work so that was that, I was going Tuesday morning with the aim of being there at first light.

Heavy drizzle first thing brought no sign of the bird, but once the 30 or 40 birders had decided there was no point staring into one bush when there was so much other suitable habitat where it could be, things looked more promising. Of course I was as far away as possible from the bird when the shout went up that it had been relocated but after a quick sprint, I was grilling the bird in the scope as it fed along the bottom of the hedgerow.

Common Yellowthroat - Andy Jordan

Check out some fantastic footage here 

Having had decent views for an hour or so, I decided to head off for the Lesser Scaup at Cosmeston Lakes at nearby Penarth. Having made my way through Cardiff, I eventually arrived at the lakes and found I was the only birder present, excellent!! Nevermind, a drake Lesser Scaup isn't too  difficult to pick up but then I saw the size of the place and wished some others had followed me down from the Yellowthroat. Undeterred I set off to the far lake and began searching, an hour or so and still no sign even though it had been reported on the Monday, right where I was searching. As I'd seen a few before I decided to cut my losses and head back to the car and start the long journey home. Stopping at the East lake on the way back I decided on one more quick scan and there not more than fifty yards from the shore was the Lesser Scaup - result!

Lesser Scaup - Cosmestn Lakes (iPhone through scope)

A quick look through the ducks and swans being fed by the vistor centre also revealed the very confiding Whooper Swan.

Whooper Swan - Cosmeston Lakes

All in all a decent twitch and one finally back on my Dad, the last time thta happened was the Red necked Stint at Somersham in Cambridgeshire in 2001. Just hope it's not another 11 years before the Song Sparrow in Yorkshire!!

It's been a while...

Sorry for the distinct lack of drivel/updates on here lately, things have been a bit hectic what with work, being ill, living, oh yeah and we also had another one of these!!!

Toby was born at the end of November last year, hence the lack of birding updates. But now, as things have started to settle down and we're managing more than 2 hours sleep a night, I've managed a bit of local birding and even would you believe it, a twitch! I've already got a pair of bins for him, courtesy of Mothercare, to match his big sisters, just in case he decides to get interested (as if he has a choice). She's already got a couple of decent blockers on him though, White Throated Robin and Audouin's Gull, are good starters.

Long haul north

September 2009 was memorable for me for a few reasons, most notably because Amy underwent open heart surgery in Leeds General Infirmary. It was a traumatic time for our family but as always with her, she just gets on with it and once again proves what a fantastic little girl she is. We spent just over a week in Leeds and then spent a further week back in Hull before being discharged home. As well as this, I moved my shop into new premises, slightly less traumatic but still quite stressful!!!

The first day we arrived on the ward at Leeds, news broke of a Blackburnian Warbler on St Kilda. Fortuantely it proved to be untwitchable, but to be honest it could have been at Old Moor and I still wouldn't have gone. I've promised myself that one day I'll make it over to St Kilda, one of my favourite ever TV episodes was Monty Halls Hebridean Adventure when he made landfall on St Kilda, awesome place, scenery, birds, everything, oh and there's also this:

St Kilda Wren

News also broke of the Sandhill Crane on Orkney, this was one bird I knew there was no chance of getting to unless it stayed until Christmas!!! Then of course there was the Tufted Puffin in Kent, ridiculous bird in a ridiculous place, proving that anything can turn up anywhere at anytime. As always, when you can't go for a bird, you imagine that everyone else in the country is off seeing it, of course that's never the way. As it turned out the only bird that proved to be twitchable was the Crane on Orkney, only then if you were prepared to invest a bit of money and a bit of time travelling up for it.

When news broke of another Sandhill Crane flying over Dunbar at 8.15am on 16th September, plans were being formulated, but then after disappearing again, I thought it was another one that had got away. Then, while waiting for more news of the Long toed Stint in Sussex on 22nd, news broke that the Crane had been refound in Aberdeenshire at Loch of Strathbeg RSPB. The twitch was back on.

I should have tried to go the next day and been there at first light, but as always I dithered about a bit and finally decided to travel through the night on the Friday. With a few false alarms when it flew off south during the day, the twitch was nearly over before it had even started, but at 11.30pm I started the long haul north. Picking up Jonny and Ellen at Scotch Corner services on the A1, just before 1am, we had a chance to catch up on the last few years since we last twitched together, that was also to Aberdeenshire, for a Barrow's Goldeneye. It was constantly on my mind that we had to be there for first light, just in case it did a flit. So the foot was held down for a bit and after a brief encounter with the local police just into Scotland (just a routine check up!!) and 440 miles later we were pulling onto the reserve car park just after 6am and before it got light. We wandered into the visitor centre and joined the waiting crowd. Amazingly somebody picked it out in the near darkness, saying he could see the red on the forehead, therefore not one of the resident herons, it was a brave call but the correct one. The bird continued to show reasonably well from the visitor centre before flying to it's daytime feeding area in the stubble fields in the St .Combs area.

So we had connected well before 7am and we could finally relax a bit, oh yeah and drive all the way home. But with the pressure off, we took it a bit steadier on the way back south, stopping for the obligatory McDonald's celebration breakfast.

Of course, now that every man and his dog have had a chance to connect with it in Suffolk, it will be several years before it returns to it's true status of being a MEGA, I wonder what the next unblocked MEGA will be?

Old fall plantation anyone?

What's the twitch?

One for the oldies, any ideas?

Ok, a few clues:

- I was only 9 years old at this twitch
- the bird in question didn't survive the night

Still no idea!

- it was the second species of "Coccyzus" of the day

By the way, you won't see me in the photo as I had pushed my way through the crowd to get some decent views of the bird, leaving my Dad at the back

Answers on a postcard to :The junction of Porthloo Lane and Telegraph Rd, St Mary's, Isles of Scilly.

Looking back and looking forward to.... Autumn

I know Autumn and Spring are the key rarity finding seasons of the birding year, but Autumn really is the most exciting for me. Over recent years things have changed somewhat at home (and are set to change again very soon with our new arrival due in Nov ), so I know that I'm not going to be able to get to see everything. It's just that most days you get a MEGA alert come through on the pager, quite often more than one a day, and with the magical beeps comes the excitement of something amazing from the East or even better, something from the West, namely America. Although we tend to get more records of the commoner species like Swainsons and Grey Cheeked Thrushes, Blackpolls and Myrtle Warblers, there's always the chance of something really special, like another of these little beauties turning up...

Or it's about time I caught up with one of these and unblocked it from Dad so this would do for starters, preferrably on the east coast, on a weekday, no crowds and all that!!

Desperate times...

...call for desperate measures!!!

With the disappearance of last nights Spotted Crake at North Cave Wetlands, came news this morning of one of the commoner birds I need for Yorkshire. With a busy morning ahead swimming with Amy, we took a short drive out after lunch.

Parking at the far end of the lane, we walked straight towards Far Lake where this morning's report came from, but stopping on the way, I scanned through the scattering of ducks on Carp Lake and picked out the 3 Red crested Pochards (243) (2 eclipse drakes and a female).

You can just about make out the red bills on the 2 males - honestly!!

Amy checking for any other additions to her list!!!



A bird in the hand...

To cheer you up through the summer quiet period, click the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=EUEZkwJulBY