Good Birding Weekend

Lindsey is in New York this weekend (and if the volcano in Iceland doesn't stop, she may never get back) which means I can go birding at leisure. On Saturday morning I went to the Barnes Wetland Centre and was treated to a good sighting of a sparrow hawk, my first green sandpiper and my first sand martins which were flying in and out of a bank that the wetlands centre have set up for sand martins. There were also a number of redshanks there which were great to see.

In the evening I went to my parents and witnessed their largest haul of mandarins so far this year at 12. There were 3 pairs and the rest males with one of them ringed. Having spoken to a local ringer during the week, Phil Belman, I was pleased to notice the ring and have also photographed a robin in my garden with a sky blue and probably illegal ring.

On Sunday morning, I went on a planned bird walk with Tony Duckett, the wildlife warden of Regent's Park and a group of other birders. With Tony knowing the bird song he was easily able to pick out a blackcap which we then saw and also a brief glimpse of a sedge warbler. On the walk we also saw a goldcrest, 2 sparrow hawks flying quite high and a chiffchaff.

This takes me to 85 UK birds for the year and 91 for the all time list.

More new birds from Regent's Park

A further note of frustration on being away was that while I was away, a ring ouzel had been spotted in Regent's Park and actually hung around for a couple of days. I went to look for it when I got back but to no avail. However, in the area where the ring ouzel was supposed to be I did see 2 chif chafs for the first time this year. I was very pleased with this as I have only ever seen a handful of chif chafs ever. Then I walked over to my normal area that I walk past in the morning and saw another unusual bird. This was just like the chif chafs I had just seen but to me definitely looked a bit different and if anything a bit greener. I had seen from the Regent's Park bird blog that a willow warbler had been spotted so knew that they were around. I said to myself that if the description of the willow warbler said anything about being a bit green that this must be a willow warbler. Sure, enough the RSPB site describes them as having grey-green backs. The real way to tell the difference between them is the song and in fact the next day I did hear the same bird singing and noted a slight trailing off and lowering of the notes in the song towards the end which conforms with what Collins' Bird Guide says about their song; "somewhat descending verse". The advent of the digital age is of great benefit to birding. When I got to my desk at work, I immediately looked up a willow warbler and could play their song with no problem and then compare it with the chif chaf's as opposed to looking up the phonetic description of the song which to my understanding is incomprehensible.

Yesterday, on my usual walk I then spotted a redstart, again, my first ever. At first I thought it might be a stonechat having seen many of these before but then on closer inspection, especially with the flitting tail, it had to be a redstart. That makes 88 all time UK birds and 81 for the year. 100 is beckoning on both counts. That's got to be achievable.

Diving and Birding

I have been away diving in the Red Sea in Egypt in Sharm El Sheik. From a birding point of view the holiday was a bit frustrating despite being a great holiday in general. Egypt is one of those corridors from Africa to Europe and Asia that migrating birds use. These are usually the soaring birds like raptors and storks who need the air currents present over land but not the sea. However, even knowing that, it is very difficult to figure out where to go or what to do without having some insider info, and this all in the context of a diving holiday where you are diving three times a day. Half way through the holiday one of our diving guides turned out to be a zoologist who actually studies raptor migration, Francesco Germi. Once we got talking he then offered to take me to a spot where raptors roost after crossing over the Red Sea. Unfortunately, he had to work on the day we had planned so we couldn't make the trip, maybe next time.

One time we rose from the depths and Francesco enthusiastically pointed out an Osprey, Booby and some terns resting on a buoy come lighthouse. Although I could see the birds he was referring to, it was not a good enough view for me to count any of them, so I haven't. My first true Osprey will have to wait.

Whenever I land in a country I always look out the window from the airplane and then the general area to note the first bird I see in the new country. Usually, the bird is something fairly ordinary like a crow or a pigeon and true to form the first bird I saw this time was a feral pigeon or rock dove. The second bird was more interesting being a pied wagtail but after that it was all fairly run-of-the-mill for the area. Laughing dove (really quite pretty), carrion crow, house sparrow, and the local gull, the white-browed gull. I saw some kind of quail, also apparently on migration and various glimpses of raptors and some heron like birds but nothing I could positively identify.

Then there is the diving. If you have a listing mentality, diving can be very frustrating. Imagine being in an aviary with a hundred really colourful interesting birds that you've never seen before and you have a guide with you only no one can speak. For about 15 of the birds the guide has hand signals to identify them but the others are just lost in a haze of colour. I am wondering about creating a database of fish but I'm not sure I'm quite there yet.