Chasing Crazy Birds - A Pelican, A Green Warbler and A Bearded Vulture.

10th May
4.30am Lands End car park
As the first hint of light creeps into the morning sky, it becomes obvious that the furthest south-west peninsula of Britain is shrouded in a thick mist. There are several other vehicles in the car park. I grab a short power nap after the overnight drive.

8.30am
I've been awake for a few hours now. The weather hasn't improved much but it is now properly light. I have at least seen a Serin feeding on the ground, a bird which I have only seen a handful of times in this country.
Neil and I decide to check elsewhere, for the Dalmatian Pelican has not appeared in the sky. It was last seen heading this way at 6.30pm yesterday evening.

9.56am
Neil and I have unsuccessfully checked the pools at Skewjack - they are quite simply inaccessible. If the Pelican is sitting on there, it could stay there all day. There is certainly nothing about the weather to encourage it into the air. This is frustrating.
We've now headed over to Sennen and are just about to walk a track in search of Brew Pool. Yesterday the pelican spent most of the afternoon searching for somewhere to settle, moving between tiny inadequate pools, occasionally even just flopping down into fields. Brew Pool was one of the places it had visited and, being unviewable from any road, we felt it was worth a try.
Then a phone call. The Dalmatian Pelican's at Marazion Marsh!
A quick dash back to the car and we were heading off in a whacky races convoy back towards Penzance. There was a buzz in the air, but it quickly subsided when it became apparent the bird was not actually sitting on the marsh but had been reported flying over it and heading east. General consensus was to head past Penzance towards Helston in the hope that the expanse of water known as Looe Pool might have attracted it.
It's not easy to drive fast through the narrow roads of Cornwall, though we did our best, but with each snippet of further information it was becoming apparent that the 9.56am news was old and slightly questionable. The Marazion flyover had been some 45 minutes before that message.
In a fit of desperate optimism we plonked ourselves on the low cliffs near Helston, just hoping that the bird may have rested on the sea and would possibly soar past.

11.33am
DALMATIAN PELICAN again over Lands End.
We had moved on dodgy news and the gamble had not paid off. All those who had sat still were now watching the bird. The drive all the way back through Penzance and out onto the peninsula was frustrating and just a little bit scary (and I was the one driving!). All the while we were receiving updates that the pelican was still soaring in the air.
Eventually we pulled up just outside the small village of Sennen -where we had been at 9.56am - only to be told the bird had just disappeared from view.
More hair-raising driving down narrow country lanes in pursuit. Back to the area we had been checking this morning. Nothing. 10 minutes. Still nothing. This was incredibly frustrating. Then the call. "COMING THIS WAY". I scanned the sky and it didn't take long to see the target bird. It was the size of a flying boat!

Photo nabbed from Facebook. Alan Whitehead, I hope you don't mind! Fantastic photo.

It soared right over us before disappearing a couple of times, each time only to come back over our heads. It really was a monster of a bird, eclipsing the local gulls and buzzards.
By the time we left there were maybe 20+ car loads of birders all relieved to have finally caught up with this potential first for Britain and celebrating. It was good to catch up with friends, some who I'd not seen for a good couple of years.

There was just time to drop in on a dapper Woodchat Shrike back at Marazion Marsh (cruelly ignored by us on our first fleeting visit) before embarking on the long drive back to Lincolnshire. 870 miles later I pulled back onto the farm. Nice to be home.

(ed. The tale of the pelican is not finished yet. It turns out that a park in France keeps them and that individuals from there have been tracked as far as Poland. So whether this bird is wild or not we will maybe never know. It probably won't end up as my 507th tick as the committee which decides these things is pretty conservative in its judgements. Not to worry. It was still an amazing bird to see and it certainly felt like the best kind of twitch - overnight drive, no sign, whacky races along country lanes and eventual relief and euphoria. There's not been much to excite us twitching-wise this year.)

11th May
A gentle day of recovery after yesterday's exertions. Elvis has hatched ten little ducklings. I moved them from the high-rise coop as I thought they may not make it back up the ramp, but incredibly they squeezed through the bars of the run I put them in. I looked up and they were all waddling around outside with Elvis bemused on the inside. A few quick alterations soon fixed the problem.

By contrast, the hen who was sitting on ten Ixworth eggs has only managed to have one healthy youngster. Another two chicks were dead in the nest, a couple of the eggs had just failed to hatch, though fully developed inside, a couple had been fertile but stopped growing early on and one was completely rancid inside. Don't ask me how I know - cracking open unhatched eggs is never a nice job.

Meanwhile, Rameses has gone down to one bottle feed a day in preparation for weaning. When I go down to the field I shout his name and he comes running over. He is making very good friends with the dogs. Boris is scared of him but Arthur loves to play.

12th May
On my way to feed the chickens I spotted a Short-eared Owl perched up on one of the wooden posts near the bottom of the sheep field. I only had my phone with me but it allowed me to approach incredibly close. I've had several sightings recently. Could it be that they are breeding somewhere in the area?



13th May
The polytunnel is officially full. There are baby plants everywhere. I've been itching to get the tomato plants into the ground (not the outside ones, the polytunnel ones) but you're supposed to wait for the first flowers. Well, I just about managed to spot the first developing flowers on one of my little plants and that was enough. Tomatoes, basil, sweetcorn, minipop sweetcorn and celeriac all duly moved into the polytunnel beds. In my experience, once plants have a free root run they generally flourish.

14th May
Dentist!!! Not too bad in the end. My phobia is getting better.
Morrisons - a rare trip to the supermarket, interrupted by news that a Greenish Warbler on Shetland may actually be a Green Warbler. More on this later, but it has me distracted from the shopping and instead tapping away on my phone looking for news and how to get there.
FOX! In the garden. Not good news. I let the dogs out and make lots of news. Much as I like foxes and think they're amazing animals, they're not welcome round here. This may well have been the one that killed Terry the Turkey. I put the geese and goslings away for the afternoon and made sure the door to the turkey stable was closed over.


Something's eaten my cauliflower seedlings too, despite the fortress defences. I suspect either a rabbit has pushed under the netting or invaders from underground (slugs).
I check under the cabbage collars to find half of them sheltering slugs. I liberally sprinkle some organic slug pellets and secure the netting with more pegs just in case.
Next year I think I'll need to grow my brassicas in an underground concrete bunker with artificial lights, razor wire and an intruder alert system. There seems to be no way of protecting them from everything that wants to eat them.

Meanwhile, news on the Green Warbler has firmed up. There are no planes available (at a reasonable price) and Shetland is a long, long way. I give up on the bird and spend the rest of the day in a resigned tetchy mood.
15th - 17th May

At 1 o'clock in the morning I crumbled and booked two flights from Edinburgh airport to Sumburgh. I had six and a half hours to get there. I would be picking up Sam from his digs in Newcastle along the way.

The Tyne Bridge at 4.50am

A word about Green Warbler. The capital G is important, for that indicates it's a species and not just a warbler that's green! Though it mostly is! It's pretty much like a Greenish Warbler, but those 3 letters missing off the end mean that instead of being a scarce migrant visiting this country's migration hotspots a handful of times every year, it is instead a MEGA which has only occurred once before in 1980something, before Sam was born and before I was twitching.These missing three letters were what had me desperately phoning around late evening. I'd pretty much given up on getting to see the bird. Charters were prohibitively expensive and impossible to get on and the Aberdeen flight was not at a good time of day. There was however an Edinburgh flight but the return fare was a Flybe special £466!!! There was a cheaper way back, the ferry to Aberdeen for just £34 (but taking over 13 hours). But we were flying from Edinburgh. One word on a Facebook group made my mind up (thanks Dan). Train.
So a plan was hatched to fly from Edinburgh, get a lift up through Shetland with two other mad souls (thanks Adrian and Paul) and to return on the ferry before catching a train back to the car in Edinburgh. It was going to be an epic twitch! 

As we sat in Edinburgh airport we received the dreaded pager message NO SIGN OF GREEN WARBLER. Too late now. We were going. Besides, Unst is the most northerly of the British Isles and there wouldn't be many people looking. This Green Warbler had been a bugger to locate on previous days, so there was still hope, slim hope.

On our way!

As we came in to land our glumness turned to optimism as news came in that the bird was still present. News also came in that the ferry over to Unst had broken down!!!! Could it be that after travelling the best part of 700 miles we would finally be scuppered just 8 miles and one short ferry crossing short?
We continued North. The hour and a half wait for the first ferry seemed interminable, but at least we had otters to watch and Sam was chasing after Arctic Terns and Zetlandicus Starlings - he'd never been to Shetland before.
It was while we were waiting for this ferry that we heard the second ferry was now fixed, at least enough to limp back and forth for the rest of the day.

As you can see, we made it to the ferry onto Unst. Not only that, but we made it to the Setters Hill Estate where we saw this green warbler, or should that be GREEN WARBLER.

Green Warbler. photo courtesy of Sam Viles.

The story is not quite finished though. For, as we waited for that first ferry, news filtered through of a Lammergeir (aka Bearded Vulture) being videoed by a non birder last Thursday. This was an outrageous record but seemed perfectly genuine. This was on a par with the Yellow-nosed Albatross which crossed the country a few years back without being seen by a single birder.

We put it to the back of our minds.

... until 12.57 on Monday afternoon. Sam and I were wasting away the day watching daytime TV in our Lerwick hostel when news of the Lammergeier came through again, this time in capitals. LAMMERGEIER! Dartmoor. 11.35am.

Shetland with no car was not a great place to be! We could be there by about 7 tomorrow evening if we hurried.

Despite the efforts of many birders that day and the next, the Lammergeier was only reliably seen once more by just one birder. Other reports came from non-birders seizing on the news. Several referred to a drone which was being used in the area. One confident report came from Derbyshire not long after the Dartmoor sighting!

And so we boarded the ferry at 4.30pm bound for Aberdeen. We passed Fair Isle (The Isle of birding dreams) late evening before crashing for the night on the seats in the restaurant.

At 7 in the morning the huge ferry was inching in to Aberdeen docks. We had been offered a lift back to our car by another birder and his wife who had twitched up the slow way for the Green Warbler.

Talk on the journey home centred mainly around the Lammergeier, which was probably born to parents which were possibly part of the reintroduction scheme in The Alps.
Even if we could somehow get to see it, would the committee let us have it as a tick? Doubtful. It's the pelican all over again.
I'll still go to see it though.

ed. Friday 20th May. The Lammergeier has been seen again this morning, about 20 miles north of Dartmoor. It's going to be impossible to twitch.

That Old Chestnut

Just over a week ago I received a cryptic message on my phone...

Rumours of Chestnut Bunting? Not sure on reliability and waiting to hear where. Anyone heard owt?

This was a potential first for Britain. MEGA.

That was immediately followed by a picture of a bunting. What sort of bunting was anyone's guess, for it had been hurriedly taken and hid just about every part of the bird you'd need to see to confidently identify it. All credit to the finder though for realising it might be unusual and managing to get any sort of picture.

Seconds later came the news that it was somewhere on Orkney. Having already visited Shetland and The Outer Hebrides this month, a visit to Orkney would make a change. And depending which island it was on, it could be a relatively straightforward twitch. Bing Maps informed me that the drive to Gill's Bay ferry (just west of John O'Groats) was a mere 599.7mles from my house. 10 hours 17 minutes without traffic. Realistically about 9 hours. I would need to leave within the next 3 hours.

But opinion was erring towards this being just a strange Reed Bunting - a very common bird throughout Britain. I wasn't convinced. From what could be seen on the photo, that head looked a little too rusty - even chestnutty! And there seemed to be a hint of lemon on the breast, though this was hard to make out. But neither was I sure enough of myself to get in the car and start driving! We would have to wait and hope for further images, or for the bird to stay put so that its true identity could be properly established.

Time to step down.

Over the next couple of days, more details emerged. For starters, the bird had been on Papa Westray, the northernmost and possibly the most isolated of the Orkney Isles. Most definitely the most difficult to get to, particularly with the main ferry only running twice a week and the local ferry not due to run again until May 2016!
Papa Westray is famous for one thing. It has the shortest scheduled flight in the world. About 2 minutes I think, with Loganair. But flights onto Papa and ferries onto Orkney don't fit particularly well, so to get to where this bird had been was looking like at least a three day trip. Good job I was just coming up to half term.
Anyway, this is by the by, as there was no sign of the bird now. It had been seen briefly on two days early in the week, but there had been no further sign. A couple more photos became available for inspection. They certainly looked promising for Chestnut Bunting, though not 100% conclusive. And more details of the sighting came through too. The description sounded very good. One thing was for sure, whatever it was, this was no Reed Bunting and was almost definitely something that I 'needed'.

But it was gone. Forget it. Move on.
It's been a great year for me. I've moved past 500 (species seen in UK, a major landmark) and already seen 7 new birds. I would have settled for 3.

Now, a word about Chestnut Buntings. There have already been at least 9 sightings in Britain... WHEEL SKID.... WHAT... YOU SAID IT WAS A FIRST!!!
Well, it probably is. For the others were seen in the good old days when the cagebird trade was flourishing and fresh imports to the continental markets ensured a steady flow of unlikely Eastern vagrants at odd times of year. All these records had been rejected by the powers that be, but they had stated that should a First Winter bird arrive in a good location in October or November, that they would certainly give it some very serious consideration. This current bird fits the bill on all fronts and stands every chance of being accepted as a first for Britain. It would have its detractors - mostly those who would like to have the gumption to get up and go see such birds, but who make excuses for not going rather than just doing it....  jealousy and sour grapes!

Anyway, the bird had slipped the net. No-one would be seeing this one. We'd have to wait for another.

Saturday afternoon. 2.49pm. I'm picking the last of the Borlotti Beans in a rather wet garden, untangling the stems and dismantling the bamboo supports for the winter.

MEGA Orkeny CHESTNUT BUNTING again Papa Westray between Holland Farm and track to Knapp of Howar (site of Northern Europe's oldest preserved stone house) mid afternoon.

Panic stations!!!
I spent the next couple of hours trying to work out how to get onto Papa Westray... on a Sunday... with Winter Timetables in place. I worked out I could probably make it by Monday, via a 599.7 mile drive, a ferry and a flight... if I could get on the flight. The alternative was two ferries and arrive on Tuesday. But the next ferry off would be Friday!!!

Just to improve my headless chicken mode, some stunning photos of the bird appeared. To quote an Orkney birder "Not just nailed. Crucified."

By early evening I had crumbled. I had secured a place on a charter plane from Yorkshire. It wouldn't be such an adventure, but if the bird was there in the morning then I would be on site within three hours. And I would be back home by late evening.

Fortunately the clocks went back in the early hours of Sunday morning. I struggled to get any sleep. At 3.49am I looked at the clock. I still han't had a wink of sleep. But at least it was now only 2.49!

At 5.30am the alarm went off. I jumped in the car and began the drive to Yorkshire. Just before 7.30 we had news. The bird was still there. My first instinct was to put my foot down, but the pilot couldn't leave until 10 however fast I drove. This felt strange, pootling along the road towards a lifer.

We pulled into the airfield way earlier than we needed to, fearing that we would find two teams of birders all expecting to get on the same plane! But all was quiet and there were to be no complications. Fortunately the pilot was on time and we were soon in the air and heading up the east coast, Orkney bound. I slept for the first part of the journey. When I woke up I looked down to work out how far we had got and saw the familiar bridges across The Tyne. Shortly afterwards we passed the Blyth wind turbines. I didn't stop for tea with Sue's mum.
By Aberdeen my bladder was feeling the pressure! Despite taking all precautions (no coffee, a trip to the little boys' room before we took off), it's amazing how your body manages to need the toilet when there is absolutely no option! I looked down at the bottle of squash I had brought with me. If I drank some of it, there might be enough empty space in the bottle!
I tried not to think about it and watched the distance meter on the Sat Nav creep down.

Is the toilet at the back or the front of the aircraft?

It took an awful long time to get down from 100km. I kept looking down as we headed out over the sea, across the top right corner of mainland Scotland and over the Orkney Isles. It wasn't too long before Westray came into view, then Papa Westray. We needed to approach from the north, which was a good job as otherwise we would be flying right over the bird which wasn't too far from the end of the runway.

We banked sharply and the runway came into view. It was raining for the first time in the journey. As we approached we could see the group of birders along the track just beyond the runway. It looked like they were still watching something. At least they hadn't spread out all over the place, which would indicate that they were looking for, and not at, the bird.

Runway in sight

Nearly there

We landed slightly bumpily and taxied back along the runway towards the very small airport building. There was a greeting party waiting for us. When we go to these isolated islands, it is something of a major event for the islanders and they had laid on the island minibus to take us the few hundred yards to the bird. Uncharacteristically, I insisted that we didn't leave until I had visited a certain little room. I wasn't the only one.

The Papa ranger took us along the island's one main road and pulled off at the sign to Knapp of Howar, through the farmyard and as far as he could go along the track. We debunked and ran the last 100 yards along the muddy track. At the end we could see the group of birders, scopes and cameras all pointing at the same spot. The bird was on show.

I grabbed that important first glimpse through a friend's scope which was set on the bird, then got myself set up.

The best I could do with my phone - it was rather windy.

The Chestnut Bunting was actually quite a looker. It spent most of its time poking around in the central grass verge, occasionally emerging into the muddy ruts either side. It was surprisingly good at disappearing into the grass, despite the fact that it was maybe only 15 yards in front of us.
But on the whole it was feeding totally unconcerned by us. If everybody had let it be, it would eventually have just crawled and hopped its way toward us, but a couple of the photographers had all the fieldcraft of a bull in a china shop, insisting on approaching ever closer, despite the protestations. Birders can be just a little autistic at times!!

Once the main culprits had left, the bird popped up on the wall and flew towards us. It landed again, in full view on the wall, giving amazing views, before feeding on the ground right in front of us.
And with that it was time to go again. No time to visit the Knapp of Howar. Birding friends briefly caught up with. Bird in the bag, under the belt, on the list... well, as long as the powers that be decide not to consign it to the same bin of escapehood as the previous records.

Now for some proper pictures taken by someone with a proper camera. Thanks Stuart.

An Amazing Three Weeks

No blog posts for 3 weeks! Where have I been?

Well I've been on an incredible adventure. An adventure right here.


Our first ever lambs
Mutton and Geoff

My 500th bird species in Britain. A massive landmark.
Hudsonian Godwit

Our first goose-reared goslings



Boris - our first puppy



Test week at school, but I manage to fit in my 501st bird in Britain
...and my 502nd the next day!

I learn the dark art of welding

Lots more goslings!

And May has given us some rain at last.

In the next few days I hope to be able to write a little bit about each of these.
For now I'm off to play with Boris!

Sowing, growing and mowing...and just a little birding...and lambing...and no showers

I couldn't decide what to call this post. It could have been 'Sowing, Growing and Mowing' or 'My 500th Bird' or 'What No April Showers' or 'HELP! I've got to deliver a lamb'.

In the end I went for a mash up!

There's always something to be done here on the smallholding and April is no exception. There's sowing, growing and mowing to be done, and when that's done then there's more sowing, growing and mowing.
But yesterday was one of those rare days when there was actually nothing particularly urgent that I could be getting on with. The reason for this was the woefully dry April we've had - not one shower all month so far! Because of this, the sowing has ground to a halt. As so often seems to happen, forecasts of heavy rain have slowly changed to occasional light rain showers which have, in the end, never actually materialised.
So the plan for Saturday was to potter around in the polytunnel and possibly get the mower out later in the day.
That was until, just about to let the chickens out early morning, stunning news came through of a Hudsonian Godwit on the Somerset Levels.
So that was Saturday taken care of.

Hudsonain Godwit (3rd from left)
My 500th species in Britain

It was a big twitch.

I rolled back into the farm at 8 in the evening having driven a total of 461 miles and successfully twitched a very rare bird (the last gettable one was over 30 years ago!) This bird was for me more significant than most, as it was my 500th species in Britain, a goal which has taken me 17 years to achieve.

April is not supposed to be like this. I don't mean the complete lack of showers. I mean two trips to the Scilly Isles and a mad dash to Somerset in the space of less than two weeks. Anyway, I'm not complaining and I'm still relatively up with things on the farm.

Then last night we finally had some rain. Not enough to soak the ground, but enough to tempt me into sowing some seeds. Unfortunately I was due at the Green Backyard in Peterborough to further hone my skills at lime rendering the straw bale wall which we built a while ago. Sue was off to the Fenland Smallholders Meeting which was all about bees.
I say 'unfortunately' as it would otherwise have been a very good day to catch up with some of that seed sowing and potato planting which has been waiting for a little moisture in the soil.

I spent the morning sowing beetroots, carrots, turnips, mangel wurzels and fennel before reluctantly packing up ready to head off. It's not that I didn't want to go to the Green Backyard, far from it, just that sometimes the breaks in the weather happen at just the wrong time.

But all my plans changed as I popped in on the two ewes in the stables before leaving. The paler of the two was huffing and puffing and clearly going into the early stages of labour. (This was truly a great surprise to me, for reasons which will be apparent in hopefully my next post about the birth)Now I have delivered piglets and hatched all sorts of poultry (well, actually most of it was the pigs, chickens, ducks etc), but lambing is new territory for Sue and I.
All plans were cancelled so that we could be on hand if needed. This did at least mean that I could make the most of the opportunity and catch right up in the veg plot.

But I'm sure you'll want me to tell you about our first ever lambing experience. Well, it's now half past midnight and I am still on lambing duty. Our ewe is just sitting and huffing and puffing. I shall be checking on her throughout the night and if I think that the birth is imminent I have permission to wake Sue up!
I've a feeling it's going to be a long night.

Finally, as a contrast to zooming around the country in my quest to see new species of bird, I am delighted to report that the two tree sparrows continue to visit the feeders and to collect nest material. They are in very steep decline so it is a privilege that they they have come back onto the farm. The same goes for Grey Partridges. I was fortunate enough to get a glimpse of the two which currently seem to spend much of their time down near the empty pig enclosure. And this afternoon a Lapwing, yet another bird in steep decline as a breeding species, was displaying at the bottom of my land. Then tonight at least two Barn Owls were flying around calling. I managed to see one quite high up against the stars and another flutter into the hollow stem of one of the old ash trees.
I don't quite know what I'm doing, but I must be doing something right. Maybe, just maybe, it's small scale, integrated farming which is doing the trick.

A Long Weekend in Latvia and Estonia

Birdy bits are in blue. Smallholding bits are in purple. That way you can just read the bits you are interested in, or you can read the whole lot. Hopefully this post will gradually fill with photos, as I manage to persuade the photographers to forward them to me.

Steller's Eiders - a bit distant, but you get the idea.

A few years back, Sue and I spent a week birdwatching in Poland, which turned into two weeks due to a volcanic ash cloud. The main target birds were woodpeckers and owls. In the end we were successful with 9 species of woodpecker (we only have 3 in Britain and one of those is becoming very rare). However, it took us the full two weeks and an awful lot of trekking to catch up with the ninth, White-backed Woodpecker. As for the owls, we were treated to brilliant experiences with diminutive but very territorial pygmy owls but it took days of searching to finally catch up with it's larger cousin, the Ural Owl. As for Tengmalm's Owl, this highly nocturnal species proved most frustrating . We got as close as the tree that the bird was in, but just couldn't see the bird. I did see a shadow fly across a gap.

 

So when a friend asked if I wanted to go to Estonia and Latvia to see a similar range of birds, I was very keen. I just needed to negotiate being away for Sue's birthday! Sue is an angel about this sort of thing so I was quickly booked onto a flight.

 

As it turned out, the long weekend was not just a birding experience but a lesson in smallholding and self-sufficiency too. More on this later.

 

A very early morning flight to Riga on Thursday and by the afternoon we had driven North into Estonia, boarded a ferry and were on our way across the island of Saaremaa. The weather was still and crisp and it was great to watch large numbers of winter wildfowl on the sea. A first stop in a cemetery turned up White-backed Woodpecker (yes, the one that took me 2 weeks to catch up with in Poland!) although only Will got a view of this individual. There was Middle-spotted Woodpecker and Great Spotted too, along with Nuthatches, Treecreepers, Bullfinches and Willow Tits.

 

Another stop to break the journey and I had my first lifer, but it was not a bird. Instead stood along a track and SO not bothered by our presence was this

... an elk!

 

 

We found a hotel for the night (60 odd euros for the night... for 4) and were up early Friday morning to seek out our main target species on the island, Steller's Eider. A real Northern species this one. I was lucky to see a female in Scotland in 2000, but for the others it was a completely new bird. We located the bay where a flock of about 300 birds were known to spend the winter and it wasn't long before the flock was located. Rather more spectacular than the lone, drab female I had seen all those years ago. One drake in particular was separate from the rest of the flock, very close to the shore.



 It did, however, have a little trouble balancing on a rock.

On our return we had a staggering 14 White-tailed Eagles in the air at once. We headed back across the ferry, back into Latvia and headed toward the North-East of the country to the forest house of our guide for the next two days, Gaidis. There was another woodland stop on the way, as we had a GPS location for Grey-headed Woodpecker. We parked up and headed into an area of tall trees which shot up towards the sky. A White-backed Woodpecker was quickly located. We found its favourite drumming tree and enjoyed extended views. The Grey-headed Woodpecker duly turned up too and at one point we had both species in the very same tree.
In retaliation for him throwing sticks at me, I then managed to pour soil down Dans back. Impressively, it made it's way all the way down into his wellies!



Watching White-backed
and Grey-headed Woodpeckers

We continued further into Latvia and arrived at our meeting point in the pitch black. Gaidis then drove along a rough forest track and we tried to keep up. We were clearly in a very special place and I looked forward to the morning with great anticipation. Gaidis's wife prepared a lovely late night dinner for us, a real feast of Latvian specialities. Very tasty it was too, washed down with a Latvian beer or two and a rather pungent liqueur. Gaidis and Maia (may have spelt that wrong) were incredibly generous people and made us feel tremendously welcome for the whole time we were there.


The lodge was completely off grid. Water pumped from a well, heat and hot water fuelled by a limitless supply of wood. The walls were of planks which sandwiched insulating layers of sphagnum moss.
The meal itself was a lesson in self-sufficiency, including such treats as home made cheese, smoked ham, duck soup and beef sausages.



I retired to bed and slept like a log, waking to a lightening sky and out to explore this magical place. The morning was crisp. Woodpeckers were drumming and calling, but Gaidis's keen ears picked up a distant calling pygmy owl. I was just as interested in looking around the smallholding.
















The breakfast spread was a real smallholder's banquet, with ham, cheese, eggs, honey and apple juice. In fact, this was all quite familiar, but Gaidis and Mya (If I didn't spell it wrong last time, then I have this time) live in a country of smallholders and come from a generation reared much closer to the land than we are in Britain. What Sue and I do is quite unusual, in Britain but here in Latvia it felt like the skills Sue and I have been learning these past few years are still, for some, passed on through the generations.

The morning's birding was a forest affair. The Pygmy Owl came in and sat right above us. The photographers papped it to their hearts' content.

Woodpeckers were fairly quiet though, but we still saw the giant Black Woodpecker, Grey-headed and Great Spotted.
We looked for Three-toed Woodpeckers, which should have been in an area of damp alder forest but were silent today. We did, however, see plenty of moose poo and plenty of trees chopped down by beavers. The forest was a magical place.

In the afternoon we headed off south towards the site where a Hawk Owl had been present for a while. It had not been looked for in two weeks though, during which time the snows had melted and spring had come. Disappointingly, but unsurprisingly, the Hawk Owl had moved on.

There was another target species for me to hope for today though. In Poland I spent two weeks not seeing hazel grouse. I was always in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Gaidis describes Hazel Grouse as ghost birds. They are relatively common in the right areas, but disappear long before you clap eyes on them.

But I was to be luckier in Latvia. Toward the evening we headed off to another area to try to see Ural Owl. Gaidis works extensively on owl surveys, so knew where the territories were. This did not mean that we were guaranteed sightings though. We still needed a bird to respond to recordings and to fly into the open. Gaidis told us that this was also a good place for hazel grouse and to look along the sides of the road. It wasn't long before BINGO! A bird flew across the road in front of us, quickly followed by another. We managed to see where they landed in the forest and spent the next 20 minutes or so catching tantalising glimpses of them on the forest floor and up in the branches of spruce trees. Excellent.
But the day wasn't done yet. As darkness enveloped the sky we managed to lure in a Ural Owl. At first it called in response to a recording. It is always amazing when suddenly you realise that last call wasn't from the machine. Fortunately the bird flew into the clearfell area to investigate and the others, sharper eyed than me, glimpsed it in the dark. It didn't take long for us to be obtaining excellent views by torchlight. It put on a real show. I was especially impressed with its graceful flight.

Bouyed by our success, we moved on to an area where Tengmalm's Owls had previously nested. They maybe wouldn't even be back on territory anyway, but we whacked on the tape more in hope than expectation. Tengmalm's Owl are very nocturnal and secretive. They occasionally respond to recordings, but generally don't fly towards the tape. After not much more than a minute, a female called from extremely close. This really did come as a surprise. The torches went on and after a while Dan picked up eye shine high up in a tree. But the bird was perhaps spooked by the torch as it flew almost immediately. I saw nothing of it. A period of intense searching ensued, but to no avail. The bird even had the audacity to call once more while we were searching for it, but we just couldn't find it. After a while we decided to leave the area and return a bit later. But this time the bird was nowhere to be seen or heard. The next night it was the same story. Again, so close but so far.

Dan tests the ice on Sunday morning.
Unsurprisingly it doesn't support his weight.

We returned to the lodge, highly satisfied with our day's birding, even if there had been a couple of slight disappointments. That's birding for you.
It may have been approaching midnight, but Mya still provided us with a feast, including Latvian blood sausage which was amazing and pickled pumpkins which were a revelation (project for when I get home). They actually weren't dissimilar to tinned peaches!


Our final day was spent exploring new areas as well as going over old. It started with a successful return to the alder woodland around the lodge. This morning the air was absolutely still and the woodpeckers were clearly enjoying it. Unlike yesterday, the Three-toed Woodpeckers were drumming almost constantly and it didn't take too long for us to locate two or three of them. They are a favourite of mine. Later in the day we found a most obliging Middle Spotted Woodpecker in this line of trees.

 



A drive along the Russian border gave me my best ever views of Capercaillie and then another forest drive had me shouting STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! I did actually say it seven times in very quick succession, only stopping when the car did, for a Hazel Grouse had just run up the bank and just into the forest edge right next to the car. We managed to get it up in a tree and then heard the male singing (sounds like a dog whistle). It wasn't long before we were watching a pair of hazel grouse. They stayed mostly on the spruce branches, but as far as hazel grouse views go these were excellent.

There was to be one more treat for the day. After dark Gaidis's dog was barking and something was barking back at it from the top of a tree... a pine marten. I have only ever seen this mammal twice before, both times as I was hurtling through the night in deepest Scotland. Nothing like this though.

A beer and a shared jug of Birch Sap (something else I really must learn to do - apparently you can easily get 20 litres in a day from one tree) and it was to bed. All that remained of this great break away was an early morning drive back to the airport and the delights of a Ryanair flight back to Stanstead.

At 2:30 in the afternoon on Monday I pulled up in the driveway of my farm. I'd had a brilliant break away but it was great to be back too. And I have lots and lots of new ideas to try. Look out for my posts on collecting birch sap and pickling pumpkins.