A Dusky Discovery

Sunday 4th December 2016

The day started with a long dog walk along the Main Drain and across the fields. As usual, Boris found a way of achieving maximum dirtiness while Arthur just mooched around finding interesting smells.
There are now 8 Whooper Swans by Coy Bridge and Mute Swan numbers are up to 63.
When we returned, I put in another shift digging the pond, beginning to work out where the banks will go and planning an overflow into a boggy area. The pond will be fed by rainwater diverted from the stable roof.
A late lunch found me trying one of Sue's new jams, Elderflower Champagne and Whitecurrant - very nice.

My plan for Monday was to finally drive over to South Wales to see the Masked Wagtail, but that all began to change early evening as details came through of a photo posted onto a Facebook group asking for an identification.

The first photo of the bird

to be posted on the internet

There were three photos, a blackbird, a couple of starlings and a dusky thrush.


WHOOOAAAAAA! A DUSKY THRUSH!!!!

Details of the site were not to be released until next morning but it didn't take a lot of detective work to figure out that the photo was quite probably taken in an orchard in Beeley on the edge of the Peak District.
Dusky Thrushes have been as rare as hen's teeth for many years, but I was lucky enough to catch up with one in Kent a few years back.

Chances of a Dusky Thrush sticking around are difficult to assess. Instinct told me it was unlikely to be seen the next morning. But Dusky Thrushes are almost mythical and I was keen to see it. I hatched a plan which would give me a good night's sleep and arrive me on site at about ten in the morning, the time that the precise location was likely to be released.
My insurance policy was to do a little Christmas shopping at Peak Shopping Village. That way it wouldn't be a completely wasted journey and if the bird was found I would be less than two miles away.

I set the alarm for half six and went to bed.

Monday 5th December 2016
I met up with Neil in Holbeach Tesco car park and from there we headed westwards. He was happy with the Christmas shopping plan.
But at 8.38am we received news that the bird was still there, though only seen briefly. We continued into a distinctly frosty and foggy landscape and at just past ten in the morning we were on a minor road traversing Beeley Moor. There wasn't much news on the bird. From what we could tell it had been seen briefly a couple of times.
Two minutes before our predicted arrival time we came across a Road Closed sign with absolutely no way through. We had to turn around and drive right back across the moor. Eventually we reached the small village of Beeley and found the first available parking place. It was a short walk to where the bird had been showing and as we climbed the hill there were people coming away from the bird telling us it was still on show.
We hadn't even realised it was showing, otherwise we would have tried to park closer. As it was, by the time we had walked up the hill to the church the bird had flown off. Thrushes have the annoying habit of picking up with other thrush species and disappearing off.
After another half an hour there had been no further sightings and I was starting to think about Christmas shopping at Peak Shopping Village. After all, we wouldn't be far away if the bird turned up again.
I'm not really being serious. I am much more determined than that. I headed off up a track to search for where the bird might be feeding, but it wasn't long before my phone started ringing. The bird was being watched in the orchard! (Access had by now been granted).

I ran back and it wasn't too long before I was enjoying good, if fairly brief views of the bird. There were maybe a hundred birders present at this point. The villagers of Beeley were slightly bemused by us, but we were among the first wave of birders and there had been no time for any bad feelings to set in yet.
The charity who owned the land from which the bird was viewable were fantastic. They laid on toilet facilities, parking and seemed genuinely happy to witness our eccentric passion. I hope that everybody contributed generously, though twitchers are astonishingly tight when it comes to putting their hands in their pockets. When approached with a collection bucket, somebody in front of us, despite the fact he was stood on somebody else's land by their kind permission, dared ask if it was compulsory to donate! We made sure he felt our eyes burning into the back of his head and hopefully heard our disapproving whispers.
Neil gripped me off with a bacon roll which they had laid on, but it wasn't long before chips appeared too and more bacon rolls. There was coffee and tea too.
This was quite some twitch.

The bird gave us the run around for the next couple of hours but we managed several sightings, though none longer than a minute. I recognised the lady who had originally posted the photo on the internet. She was finding it all rather surreal.

Neil and I gave it till one o'clock before heading back. We both had other halves to get back to and we didn't feel we would get much better views of the bird. Besides, more and more birders were starting to arrive and we quite wanted to get out of the place before it became too hectic.

And finally... that wonderful charity who have been so friendly and patient is dukesbarn. Their website is dukesbarn.org. Donations can be made via links on the website.

ed - the bird is still present well over a week later. It has now been seen by thousands of birders. The villagers even arranged an out-of-village car park over the weekend, with a free shuttle bus laid on. Amazing stuff!

A Plucky Little Eastern Black Redstart.

I was having a lazy morning , telling myself that the clocks would go back tonight so still being in bed at 9.40 was okay. I rolled over and looked at my phone only to see a message from Neil, timed at 8:05, asking if I wanted a lift up north to see the Eastern Black Redstart.
This bird is not a separate species to the Black Redstart we regularly see here, but it has come from a long way East along with many of the other Eastern vagrants we have had this autumn and it is a very handsome little bird. I have never seen one before.

I immediately rang Neil to find that he was already passing just north of me. I asked him to detour while I got dressed and grabbed a coffee.

A few hours later we were in Cleveland, driving down a small valley into a little place called Skinningrove, parking up and walking along to a stunning beach. It was good to meet some of the birders I know from the north-east.

The Eastern Black Redstart was drawing a steady stream of admirers, but was playing hide and seek under the piles of boulders which protected the jetty from North Sea storms.
Eventually, though, it hopped up onto the top and as the afternoon warmed up it put on a fine display right below us, snapping up numerous flies. It looked very at home in amongst the boulders and you could just imagine it hopping about amongst the rocks by some river far to the east of here.

I even managed to grab a few half decent shots by phonescoping.

I was back at home just after dark, just in time to get the news that there had been a Pied Wheatear about 10 miles up the road, only reported and identified from photos after dark. That's the third time recently I've seen a bird a day too early and missed other goodies.
Maybe I should start delaying my journeys by a day.

Another trip to Shetland and another Siberian Accentor

Almost three weeks ago I sat composing a blog post about what had been going on here on the smallholding. I wanted to get it published before I headed off to Shetland. I was just about to put the finishing touches to it when hot bird news had me heading North unexpectedly early, not to Shetland but to the Outer Hebrides. From there it was straight onto Shetland for my annual 9 days of rarity hunting (covered in my last post). Then the long drive back to the farm. Within a minute of arriving back there was news of another bird on Shetland.
I spent three days back on the farm before the lure of that Black-faced Bunting had me driving back up to Aberdeen airport, back on the plane and onto the ferry to the Isle of Bressay.

I never quite got round to finishing that smallholding blog post.

Back on Shetland

Unlike the previous week, the weather on Shetland was more in keeping with what might be expected, cold and windy. This made the bunting, a ridiculously flighty bird at the best of times, extremely difficult to locate. Eventually, after two hours, we got a sighting as it flew away and alighted on the bottom of a gate about 100m away. Brief scope views were had by all before the bird disappeared again and we were back to square one of the search.
Over the next three hours the bird led us a right merry dance, giving just fleeting glimpses in flight, usually heading away low over the fields. There were just four of us searching a large area. Eventually we pinned it down in a ditch and I managed a good view through the telescope for all of about two seconds.

No. It's not in this picture.

At this point, after 5 hours, we decided to call it a day and head back over to Shetland Mainland.
A curry and a bed in a birder's house finished the day off nicely. The list is now on 516.

Next day it was out into the field again, for our ferry was not until the evening. Every time we told the locals we were off on the ferry tonight, they chuckled and wished us good luck! For we would be heading through a south-easterly gale which would probably dump a load more rare birds onto Shetland and have us heading back up in a few days.

Highlight of the day was Dan finding a Red-flanked Bluetail in Kergord plantation. A decade ago this would have been MEGA, but we now get double figures every year. Still a good bird to find, but not one which has anybody jumping onto aeroplanes.
Come the evening we bade farewell to Dan and boarded the ferry for our 12 hour crossing. We were issued a weather warning card and given the choice whether we wanted to take the crossing or not. We had little choice and I just prayed I wouldn't feel ill.

Just 20 minutes after we set sail and people were already being sick! The boat was lifting and falling, leaving you feeling weightless one minute before crashing down through the waves. We opted not to eat but to get our heads down and sleep it out.

My sleep was a very interrupted one, but I was just pleased not to be feeling any ill effects. In fact it was quite fun, like a rollercoaster crossed with the log flume.
At some point I fell into a deeper sleep and was awoken by the captain announcing that the restaurant was open for breakfast and that we would be arriving on time. We were now within the calm waters of Aberdeen harbour.

We just had the 450 mile drive home to do now, so we opted to take the East coast route down the A1 to put us in prime position for any new rare birds arriving. A stop at Torness power station gave us a Yellow-browed Warbler, Pallas's Warbler and a Great Grey Shrike as well as bushes full of commoner migrants. I met an elderly gentleman who had last seen a Yellow-browed Warbler in 1948 on Fair Isle. He must have been one of the original pioneers. Further south and we decided to head for Sunderland docks where a Siberian Accentor had been found the previous day.
Exactly a week ago one of these gorgeous birds had us abandoning our flight off Shetland. That was the first one ever to reach Britain.
How things have changed! As I write, we have now had FIVE and it looks as though we will get a few more yet. This bird is undergoing an unprecedented migration event. Never has such a mega rare bird become quite so common in such a short period of time.

The Sunderland Siberian Accentor was trickier to see than the one on Shetland, for it had bushes and trees to hide in, but we still saw it well. Unfortunately a Chiffchaff kept chasing it away. If you'd told me a week ago that I would have seen two of these and driven past another, I'd have laughed at you.

As for that post about what's been happening on the smallholding, I'll get onto it right now. I just need to get safely through to the end of the week and it's half term. I'll have 11 days to zoom around the country chasing birds. Odds are it'll be quiet. At least if it is I'll be able to catch up with all the work that needs doing on the farm.

Turkeys in a Twizzle

Frampton Marsh RSPB is turning into a very special little reserve

12th September 2016
A lovely morning spent at Frampton Marsh bird reserve.
I decided to do the long walk and explore parts of the reserve I'd not been to before. Sunflowers, cows, open skies and wading birds.
Returned to find a note that the roofer had been. It's their own fault for never bothering to communicate.

The sheep enjoyed the husks of the sweetcorn I cleared yesterday. This was the Sweetcorn Minipop which I grow for baby corns. The plants have grown way more vigorously than their relatives which produce full-size cobs. The early minicobs were impressive, but as the plants have matured they have produced woodier cobs with bigger kernels. The last of these got fed to the sheep so one way or another we'll end up eating them anyway!

Sweetcorn Minipop being cleared

13th September 2016
Temperatures soared to 30 degrees plus today. I was up early to greet the roofer.
We now have a skylight in the dining room, though it is not finished to anywhere like the standard it should be.

Turkeys in a twizzle!
The turkeys got a fright today for some of them ventured over the fence into next door's field, where they got a shock when one of the neighbours' ten dogs took an unhealthy interest in them.
I was alerted by strange alarm calls and looked up to see several turkeys flying up onto Don's shed - it's not Don's any more! I was worried that some might be on the road so opened the front gate and walked along. As I did so, one flew from the trees and crossed the road!

I continued with refurbishing and redesigning one of the chicken houses. I started it several weeks ago but then it came to a grinding halt. Necessity has spurred me into action though, as the youngest batch of chicks will be needing a house of their own in the chicken pen soon.

The freezers are down
At 11pm the electricity went off. Not all of it, so not a bulk standard power cut but a problem at our end. All of the upstairs lights and all of the sockets, including all our freezers!

14th September 2016
Texted electrician at 6.30am and problem was fixed by 9.20am
Even got into work for the afternoon.

The other good news is that all 8 turkeys are reunited.



15th September 2016



Foggy start
Warm nights bring foggy mornings. This didn't stop Arthur from making his first ever rabbit kill. He did have a slight advantage as all the rabbits seem now to have mixy. A small part of me feels sorry for them, but they are very destructive. Just one or two would be ok, but they are rather famous for multiplying rapidly. That's now one each for Boris and Arthur. At least they put the poor creatures out of their misery quickly.


16th September 2016
Stuck in work. There was good birding to be had on the east coast today, but not for me! Here's a pic of next door's ponies and sheep and another nice one of the dogs with the turkeys and geese.

17th September 2016
A flock of over a hundred linnets in the next door field today was great to see. Sizeable winter finch flocks are becoming rare as farming becomes more and more industrial and our farmland birds rapidly disappear.

A chick saved
Less good to see was that one of the baby chicks had been quite badly pecked by the others. I removed it and sorted out separate living quarters until it heals up. Chickens can be pretty vicious, but this time I think they weren't so much picking on a weak individual as being pre-programmed to peck at anything red.

Token apple harvest
A couple of the apple and pear trees have done well this year, though on the whole it has been very disappointing.
But there were enough apples on one of the trees to fill two large baskets and to spare quite a few windfalls for the sheep, who very much appreciated them.
Nuts!
We picked the cobnuts too. One tree had loads, one was average and two had none whatsoever. Explain that.

Fea's Conquered

1st September 2016
Autumn is officially here. Things are starting to quieten down on the smallholding, which is a good thing as the days are getting shorter and the weather is getting windier and wetter.
Unfortunately I have to go back to work, not that I don't enjoy it, just that there are always other things to be doing.
I expect my life will be regularly interrupted by birding. At least I hope it will be, for this is set to be an active hurricane season which usually brings plenty of waifs and strays from across the water.

2nd September
With the weather charts showing a fairly strong system coming into the south-west hard on the heels of constant westerly and south-westerly winds, I decided to head down to Cornwall, taking the daytime drive option. Although the drive is more tedious and it wastes valuable daylight hours, it does guarantee a half-decent night's kip before a long day sat on the side of a cliff in the face of a gale and its attendant squalls.
I picked up Dan in Bristol and we arrived in Penzance just in time to check in to the Backpackers Lodge before heading out for an evening meal in The Dolphin, the pub directly opposite the quay where the Scillonian boat sails to the magical Isles of Scilly.

3rd September 2016 - A Day for The Notebook
An early start had us all set up and staring out to sea as the sun was coming up. Seawatching is a difficult skill to acquire and takes practice. I always find myself struggling to get onto other people's birds for the first hour or so until I get my eye in again. The birds are often very distant and frequently disappear behind the waves. It is unusual that you can see enough detail using binoculars so most searching is done through a telescope. The problem with this is that the sea is a very big place with very few landmarks. When somebody else calls out a good bird it can be very difficult to locate it for yourself.
Of course if it's a really good bird then this can be frustrating. If it's a really, really good bird then it's easy to panic when you've still not found it after about 20 seconds of desperately scanning the ocean.
The technique is to slowly move the telescope across the field of view and wait until the bird appears. Move too quickly and the bird could be behind the waves as you pass by it. Move too slowly and you'll only get one chance. If it flies under your field of view you'll miss it.
Strangely enough, distant birds are easier to get onto, for they can take twenty minutes or so to travel across the viewable ocean. Also the further you look out, the more sea you are viewing, even if the birds can be very distant indeed needing an experienced eye to identify.

Worse though are the birds which pass close inshore. They often get literally overlooked. I was recently seawatching at Pendeen in Cornwall when a Red-billed Tropicbird, a monster rarity, flew along the cliffs in front of fifty people and no-one saw it. The only reason we knew about it was that somebody sat elsewhere told us about it later. Fortunately I am one of the very lucky few who have seen this species in British waters.

The sea(bird)watching was good today. Any time you are hearing calls of "Large Shear" you know it is going to be a good day, for these amazing birds are totally unphased by the weather. Whatever it throws at them they simply glide and shear effortlessly low over the waves, hardly needing to flap their wings. A strong southwesterly blow is essential to ease them closer to land as they are pelagic birds. Squalls seem to help too. I think they just choose to skirt round them which sometimes lures them closer to land than usual.
This morning was a good day for "large shear(water)s" with about fifty Cory's Shearwaters, many coming unusually close to land and affording excellent views. There were Great Shearwaters too.

But what we were really hoping for was a Fea's Petrel (to be more accurate, a Fea's-type Petrel, for there is another very similar bird which could, in theory, occur here - but that is nit-picking). With a very limited population breeding on Cape Verde, it is remarkable that the occasional bird makes it into British waters and even more rarely gets seen from land. I had seen one previously from the west coast of Ireland, where they are possible to see with a lot of persistence. I spent over twenty days seawatching before finally glimpsing one near the horizon!

But from the English mainland Fea's Petrels are even harder to catch up with. There are just a few sightings every year. The best period for them is late August.
At the beginning of this year I decided I wanted to see one from land in England. I had two options. The whackiest was to start driving north if one ever got sighted from more than one point facing the North Sea, for very irregularly a rare seabird is tracked all the way up the coast.
The other was to head down to Cornwall every time the weather looked good during the summer holidays. I reasoned that Fea's Petrels often get seen when Cory's Shearwaters are in our waters. They don't associate with them at all, but maybe move under the same conditions.

One other thing about Fea's Petrels. They have a terrible habit of passing by when everything has quietened down on the seabird front and everybody has packed up and gone home.

Come midday the rain set in. Most people left but Dan and I and one other hardy Cornish soul battled on for another couple of hours. But there is usually a late morning and early afternoon lull in seabird passage. We got absolutely drenched and the lull brought no surprises, so we eventually gave up and returned to the car to blast the heating on and try to dry out a little.
Another thing about seawatching is that it is very difficult to leave while there is anybody left looking, for it just takes one moment for some mega rare bird to fly past. At least if nobody is left you are none the wiser!

We negotiated the flooded backroads of the Cornish peninsula back to Penzance, where we headed for the beach at Marazion where a smart juvenile Buff-breasted Sandpiper, fresh in from America, was performing well.
The rain and the wind had eased off by now.

Dan and I are persistent little blighters. We had gone to Cornwall to seawatch in the hope of striking lucky, maybe with a Fea's Petrel, maybe with something even rarer. It wouldn't matter if we didn't see anything in this league, for it is not often we get to go seawatching and see so many pelagic birds passing close to land.
So late afternoon we found ourselves sat back on the cliffs. At least we weren't getting soaked. There were only half a dozen of us there now to witness a reasonable passage of birds. Large Shears were still occasionally passing by. At about 5.50 one person left, wishing us all luck, but not too much! At 6 o'clock, apparently, somebody else left from a bit further up the coast.
At 6:04pm I was watching a Cory's Shearwater doing what shearwaters do best, shearing across the waves and steadily getting closer, when I heard some unusual noises from next to me.

Something like "woh, woh, woh" from Dan. I knew it was something good. Dan has younger, sharper eyes than me and if he's getting excited about a bird then it is very likely something good.
A couple of seconds later I was in that blind panic trying to find a FEA'S PETREL.
Worryingly, the bird was close in and already more than half way past. It had snuck under our scopes.
I pointed my telescope downwards, but I was seeing so little sea that the chances of getting on the bird were slim. In under a minute it would be round the corner and out of sight.
I decided to give it five more seconds and then switch to binoculars. But a that moment I just caught a bit of wing appear from behind a wave before losing it again. I was pretty sure it was the bird though, so I moved the scope slightly right, trying to anticipate the flight of the bird and suddenly there it was, majestically rolling from side to side as it sheared over the waves.

Not our bird, but the best picture I could find to approximate the type of view we got. 

Fea’s Petrel off Truro © Steve Arena

In reality it had only taken maybe five seconds to get the bird in view. I had got lucky. But it felt like five minutes. It was as close inshore as you could want a Fea's Petrel to be and was heading past at quite a speed. Watching seabirds is as much about overall impression and flight action as anything else, but this bird was close enough to afford the luxury of studying some of the plumage detail too in the short time we had to observe it. The underwing was very dark indeed, contrasting with a gleaming white belly. The upperwing and mantle (back) appeared a similar tone to the sea, just slightly darker, but it wasn't possible to make out too much detail with the views I got. Light conditions made it appear paler than usual. The mask and the bill are distinctive on this type of petrel. The first one I had seen in Ireland was so distant you could hardly even make out a head! But on this one the familiar head pattern was obvious. I knew too to look for a pale grey tail - at great distance this can make it look almost tailless from the upperside as it shears up into the air. But in reality it wasn't the plumage details that mattered. Gadfly petrels have a way of flying like no other and this was majestic to watch. In fact, their flight is closest to a "large shear" except they are nowhere near the size.

I had only been on the bird for maybe ten seconds when it flew under the only notable landmark in the sea off Porthgwarra, the Runnel Stone (actually a large buoy). It passed well inside this marker. Most seabirds pass just outside.
But one of the four people left was still not on the bird. With the bird being so close and passing by so quickly the Runnel Stone had come up out of the blue and by the time I called out that it was there it was past. Then all went quiet and we savoured our brief but close views of a Fea's Petrel passing the south-west tip of Cornwall.
After a total of less than a minute it was gone.
It was only at this point that we realised the fourth person had never got onto it. That just goes to show how easy it is to miss a once in a lifetime opportunity when you are seawatching. That's the appeal of it. You've got to be in the right place at the right time and looking in the right direction. If you get lucky, you see a bird which will be gone in a matter of minutes. But that's what puts the pressure on if someone else calls it out.

Sunday 4th September 2016
A good night's sleep and a switch to Pendeen this morning as the winds had switched to westerly. Pendeen is on the north coast of the peninsula and after a south-westerly blow all the birds which have been blown up towards the Bristol channel filter back down. Ideally a north-westerly wind keeps them near the shore as they pass by. A westerly is not bad either.

Seawatchers huddled up against the lighthouse wall at Pendeed

The offshore rocks at Pendeen at least give a reference point.

There were plenty of people in position as the day started pretty well with more large shears, though most were distant. Remarkably Dan had another possible Fea's Petrel, but it was ridiculously far away. I got onto the bird he was describing for just about three seconds and Fea's crossed my mind too, before Dan had called it, but  just couldn't get enough to make a shout. It was only as it was about to disappear out of sight that Dan felt he could shout it, though he had already called that he had an 'interesting' bird that looked like a large shearwater but was too small.
But this would have to remain as one that got away. Thank goodness I had seen the one the previous evening!
Even more astonishingly, not much later one of the Cornish stalwarts called Fea's again, but again he couldn't get enough on it to be completely sure and nobody else got on the bird.
That's seawatching for you.

Choppy seas - ideal!

As the early afternoon lull came upon us, we decided to head off via a Hudsonian Whimbrel (a long-staying American waif) in a nearby rocky cove. Then another detour to Davidstow Airfield on Cornwall's north coast, a huge disused airfield which sometimes attracts waders. Alas, today all it was attracting was quite a collection of weirdos who appeared to be stalking sheep and ponies!


By 5:40pm we were filling up with petrol near Taunton. I would soon be dropping Dan off in Bristol and would hopefully arrive home in The Fens before 10. That was until we got back in the car and it completely refused to start.
We had to push the car away from the petrol pumps and I called Breakdown Cover. I am no mechanic and neither is Dan. As we settled in for a long and frustrating wait, Dan searched his phone for a solution (Dan and his phone are completely inseparable, he is half human half phone). He asked me to lift the bonnet and there, in front of us, was a loose battery connector. Problem solved and thankfully on our way again.
I rolled back onto the farm at 9.30pm after a very satisfying weekend.

The next rarest seabird I need on my list is Little Shearwater. This is even harder to predict, but next weekend is bringing some pretty tasty weather into the south-west, so I could be heading that way again!

A Cloud Tick

25th August 2016

Minipop ready for harvest

as soon as the tassles show

After my trips to Cornwall and Ireland, I needed to catch up on some harvesting. The Sweetcorn Minipop has harvested very well so far, but the later flush of cobs have grown differently, with larger kernels. They don't taste quite so sweet and the cores are slightly woodier, but as long as you catch them early they are still perfectly edible.






In contrast, the maincrop Sweetcorn has been very disappointing this year. Even in the polytunnel I only got about 0.5 cobs per plant. The cobs I did get, though, were huge and a real treat. Outside was a similar story. The plants never flourished and produced small, half pollenated cobs. It clearly wasn't the year for sweetcorn, not enough sun in May and June.

I've cleared all the corn from the tunnel now, which should let more light and moisture in for the crops I've underplanted.
I had lots more vegetables to harvest, but a tweet to 'get ready to hammer it to Spurn' had me heading off again. For the rumour quickly firmed up that a probable Yellow-breasted Bunting had been photographed there round about midday. Several hours had passed since then, but if I waited for further news it would be too late for me to get there.

Curlew Sandpiper at Frampton Marsh

So I started driving, but it wasn't long before a very rare Yellow-breasted Bunting turned back into a Corn Bunting, a British breeding bird. As I was close by, I considered it rude not to pop into Frampton Marsh, an excellent RSPB reserve just north of The Wash. I had great views of a Kingfisher and there were lots of waders, most notably large numbers of Curlew Sandpipers. I see these every summer when the waders pass through, but numbers this year have been exceptional affording good opportunities to really study the birds.


I was most impressed, however, by a strip of sunflowers underplanted with winter seed plants for the finches. I had tried to achieve something similar here on the farm, but sunflowers just can't seem to make it past the ravages of the slugs.







26th August 2016
Back into the polytunnel today as I spotted a few cucumbers hiding. In fact, more than a few!

The polytunnel tomatoes are doing brilliantly this year too. I've grown fewer plants but given them more space and more attention. This strategy has paid off as Sue today froze our 30th carton of tomatoes.
Some of the outdoor tomatoes seem to have made it past the blight too, particularly a variety known as Outdoor Girl which I am trying this year. We're having to pick them before they are fully ripe, otherwise the birds find them, but they ripen off nicely on the windowsill.

27th August 2016
Absolutely stunning views of a hobby today as it repeatedly swooped through the top paddock attempting to catch itself a swallow for lunch.
But it was totally eclipsed later in the day by a sky the like of which I've never seen. The weather was spooky, on the edge of a storm. The air was incredibly humid and still, but it felt as if something major was about to go down.
It was at this point that the Asperitas clouds appeared in the sky. I first noticed a strange inverted funnel looking like the precursor to an alien invasion. The sky then filled with clouds in strange wave formations. It was just like snorkelling under the sea and looking up at the surface.

Asperitas clouds are, I have since learned, the newest named form of cloud, only officially going on the list in 2015. I don't think that means they've only just started occurring, but I've certainly never seen anything like them before.

They were accompanied by rolling thunder and occasional flashes of lightening, but despite their menacing appearance the rain did not come... Not till about half an hour later when the sky darkened ominously and the heavens opened. So much rain fell so quickly that it started coming through the porch ceiling. I quickly scurried outside to clear the gutter. While I was at it I linked hosepipes to all the water butt overflows to collect as much rainwater as possible.

If I ever see asperitas clouds again I'll get ready for the downpour.

A Royal Flush

24th August 2016
The routine for twitching birds in Ireland is pretty well rehearsed now. Trouble is, the last four times I've done it have ended in failure, dipping the bird.
I waited for a mate from Norfolk then left my house at 8.30pm for the drive westwards towards Holyhead port, picking up another two birding friends along the way.
The ferry departs at 02:30 and you can get a 24 hour ticket which is quite reasonable if you share the cost. I prefer to do it this way as it means I can just chuck all my stuff in the car and go.

It always seems slightly crazy that two companies run ferries on this route yet they choose to have virtually identical schedules, resulting in chaos at the port. Queues were particularly long tonight - we later found out that the road to Holyhead had been closed earlier in the day causing many vehicles to have to switch ferries. We hadn't pre-booked the ferry and it took a full ten minutes for the woman at the ticket booth to issue us a ticket. By this time the cones had been put across and we had an uncomfortable wait while it appeared everybody had forgotten all about us.

We finally received the go ahead and by three in the morning we were steaming out into the Irish Sea. We had secured some reasonably cosy seats in the old restaurant area with enough space to stretch out. Our wallets never stretch to a cabin, not for a three hour crossing. Besides, I was far too hyperactive to sleep much.
The crossing was dead smooth and I did manage to grab almost an hour's sleep, despite Neil's snoring, before we were driving off the other end into Dublin City... well, I say driving, it was more of a crawl as all the lorries from BOTH ferries got off before us.

By 7.30am we had news that the Royal Tern was still there. We were through Dublin and doing unmentionable speeds across Ireland towards the west coast. It was just before we reached Limerick that news came through the bird had been pushed off the beach by the rising tide - we always knew this was a likely scenario. We were a bit gutted, but there was still a fair chance the bird would reappear as the tide dropped again. Fortunately it was frequenting exactly the same area as an Elegant Tern I had seen three years ago, so we knew the places to check out.

The Elegant Tern has stuck it out for eleven days - that's about ten more days than any Royal Tern has ever stuck around for! I had previously had two near misses with Royal Tern but others making the journey were up to seven or eight attempts! Royal Terns have a nasty habit of spending the evening on a beach and buggering off out to sea overnight. You need to be close by when they're found.

As the day wore on we began to lose hope. Us twitchers are by nature a pretty determined and persistent bunch. We must, I guess, be fairly optimistic too, or we wouldn't try, but I always like to retain a healthy dose of pessimism. That way you get more pleasant surprises than ugly let-downs.
There were basically two parts of Beale Strand where the Royal Tern had chosen to hang out, but we knew of a further two parts of the estuary further east where terns liked to hang out, both at the end of very minor roads. So that was four places to keep checking. At least it kept us moving.

As we walked the length of Littor Stand for the third time we were now considering whether to leave in the next hour to get back for the evening ferry or whether to give it all day and catch the overnight. We were all still quite chipper all things considered. There would be another chance at Royal Tern. Maybe we'd need several more chances but in the end we would catch up with one, probably.
It was now three in the afternoon.

Then Dan got a call. IT'S THERE. West Beach.
We scuttled back to the car and covered the couple of miles along narrow country lanes at alarming speed. As we screeched into the car park we could see a line of twitchers on the beach. We left the car in the middle of the car park, grabbed our optics and ran off down the slipway and across the wide, sandy beach. My summer footwear was not well suited to running and bouncing between the salty puddles but right now it didn't matter.

Twitchers lined up on Beale Strand. I had to cut half the picture as Dan decided to moon the camera!

There were maybe twenty twitchers lined up, scopes pointing toward a group of gulls and terns on the sand at the water's edge. The worst thing that could happen now would be that they all fly up and I fail to pick up the Royal Tern as they all disappear into the distance. Though unlikely, this sort of thing does happen, so I aimed for someone else's scope for that first, vital view.
And there it was. A giant tern with a large orange/yellow carrot for a bill.

It was, of course, never in doubt that we would see the bird!

The poor thing had an injured leg, confirming that it was the same bird which had been seen a few days before further up the coast. It sat on the beach, occasionally lifting up to shift position in the flock. Often it was on its own. The line of twitchers edged forward for closer views. At one point the bird flew right along in front of us. That giant bill almost seemed to weigh down its head as those long, slender wings and surprisingly slow wingbeats took it gliding past us.

We shared about half an hour with the bird before it seemed right to leave it be. If we left now, we should be able to make the evening ferry.

And that's what happened. I managed another one hour's sleep on the ferry (would have been more but we had three very loud natterers sat near us) and rolled back onto the farm a few minutes before five in the morning. 32 hours. 2 nights. 2 hours sleep. 2 boats. 900 miles driving. 1 Royal Tern.
The list now stands on 517.

Storm Chasing

Arthur's thinking "You're not off again, are you?"

Sorry, but don't expect to read much about smallholding in this post, for I've been busy scooting around the country chasing rare birds again while the marvellous Sue has been looking after things on the farm.

19th August 2016
A day at the Birdfair
Every year the birding community gets together over three days at Rutland Water Birdfair. I tend to make it a rule not to go as it represents to me the commercial side of birding chasing the all too grey pound. On the other hand, lots of people I know work for such companies so it is a good chance to meet up with people from far and wide. It raises a lot of money for environmental charities too, though fifteen quid per person seems a bit steep for the privilege of going into a giant outdoor shop.

Anyway, there was a reason for going along today as I had decided it was time for a new pair of binoculars, my 50th birthday present from Sue. It would be a good chance to compare them side by side and hopefully to get a show bargain... or so I thought. As it happened service from all of the companies was pretty poor, especially considering the amounts being spent. Unfortunately all competition is eradicated with pre-Birdfair deals which mean that only certain exhibitors get to sell certain brands. The result is that, although everybody is in one place, the big companies concentrate their efforts on making as many sales as possible while providing as little personal service as possible.

Anyway, I am quite capable of choosing my own binoculars, but bearing in mind how much I was going to spend I drafted in a couple of mates to help me with the decision.
Overall I had a pretty good day, but I'm not sure I'll be going back for a good few years yet.

20th - 21st August
Seabirds galore
There's no better time to visit Cornwall than in a howling gale! So last night I travelled down to a cliff near Lands End where, at the crack of dawn, I set myself up huddled in the face of the wind and rain, scope pointing out to sea. Fortunately it was not my turn to drive this time, so I felt relatively fresh. The stiff breeze soon made me feel fresher.
For suitable summer gales only happen a couple of times a year. They bring seabirds, normally living a pelagic life far away from land, within view. Specifically they bring ideal conditions to see tubenoses, that's shearwaters, petrels and even an albatross if you get very, very lucky (and a few more verys).
I didn't take my brand new binoculars, since taking them out into  two days of salty sea squall would have been a baptism of fire for them, not that they shouldn't be able to cope easily with such conditions. Anyway, the birds come within sight of land but they don't exactly dance right in front of you, so most viewing is with a telescope at fairly long distance.

St Michael's Mount, Cornwall

I won't bore you with the detail, but during the morning, as well as ubiquitous gannets and fulmars which are regular fayre, we were lucky enough to see about 80 Cory's Shearwaters, a bird which breeds in colonies in The Canaries, Madeira and The Azores. I have probably only seen these birds about a dozen times so a relatively large passage is a privilege to see and a rare opportunity.

Come lunch time the winds swung round slightly and the procession of seabirds dried up. It was time to move to the north coast of the peninsula, where Pendeen offers slightly closer viewing and often more variety of seabirds. Here we had plenty of storm petrels, tiny little storm waifs which patter over the water. How such a delicate bird survives in such a wild environment is one of nature's wonders. There were Sooty and Great Shearwaters too, birds which breed in the Southern oceans before making a huge migration into the North Atlantic every year.

22nd August
More grandchicks for Elvis
Back on the farm and a recovery day after my Cornish exploits. Highlight of the day was undoubtedly two new chicks, hatched out by Priscilla, daughter of Elvis, who we allowed to sit on a few of the eggs she laid in the turkey stable.
We also finally got our TV aerial fixed after nearly six years. We now have the shiniest new aerial in The Fens and hundreds of useless channels not to watch.







23rd August
Here we go again!
Remember my tales about Royal Tern in my last post?
Well it's back, just down the coast. And this times plans are afoot to go for it. I'll be leaving at 8.30 tonight, picking up people in the Midlands and arriving in Holyhead in time for the 2:40am ferry.
We should be on site in South-West Ireland by about 9 tomorrow morning. Hopefully the bird won't do another vanishing act overnight, though the past record of Royal Terns indicates otherwise...
I hope to be back on he evening ferry, mission accomplished.

Totally cuckoo

Black-billed Cuckoo - a dream bird!

Read further down for more

(All cuckoo photos by kind permission of Stu Piner)

22nd May

Another big day planned in the veg garden today. First job was to finish the structure for the peas to clamber up. It's taken ages to construct but it's worth it. One of Sue's willow dragonflies tops it off nicely. I'm growing Champion of England, an old-fashioned tall pea (they've gone out of fashion as they crop over a long period and cannot be harvested mechanically. I've sowed late in the hope that the flowers avoid the emergence of the pea moth.

I've planted a Squash Uchiki Kiri to climb up with the peas. Once they've been harvested it'll add some interest and have the structure to itself.

Next I planted the Minipop Sweetcorn plants which have been raised in the polytunnel. It should be warm enough for them outside now. There'll be no trouble with them cross-pollenating the maincrop sweetcorn as these are harvested as baby corns before pollination occurs. Again I've underplanted some Butternut Squash which will provide some ground cover and occupy the ground once the corn comes out.

While I was doing this, Sue was busy harvesting. We currently have a steady supply of mangetout, asparagus, rhubarb and new potatoes, as well as coriander and strawberries.

It was nice to hear the first farm cuckoo this year too, but warblers seem scarce on the ground so I'm not sure it will find a victim. Apparently each individual cuckoo is adapted to parasitise one species.

Evening crept up quickly today and before I knew it the clock had moved on to 6pm.

It was shortly after that I received a phone call. "There's a Black-billed Cuckoo on North Uist."

Here we go again!!!!

23rd May
So last night was somewhat overtaken by arrangements to travel for the cuckoo. To catch the morning ferry from Uig (Isle of Skye, 570 miles!) I needed to leave by 9.30pm. I had booked my car and myself onto the boat for the princely sum of £36.10 but plans had already changed. A friend had arranged a small charter boat back off the island so that we didn't need to stay an extra night.

A quick word about Black-billed Cuckoo. It's one of those birds which, at the age of almost 50, I thought I may never see. It comes from America. There was one last year for all of about five minutes on one of the Orkney Isles. Before that you have to go back 24 years to one which ended a bit of a run in the 1980s when there were 6 birds, an incredible 4 turning up in 1982.
But there's more to it than that, much more. For Black-billed Cuckoo has obtained quite a reputation for dropping dead shortly after arriving in Britain. There has long been a theory, birders' urban myth or not, that the caterpillars they find to eat here are toxic to them. Anyway, whatever the cause of their demise, even back in the 1980s you had to be pretty much in the right place at the right time to catch up with a BBC. Many of the old time birders were, though, when birds turned up with some regularity on The Scillies, albeit usually on their last legs clinging to branches droopy-winged and lazy-eyed. (The cuckoos, not the old birders, though that description may fit some of them!)
Today's bird seemed healthy enough though. It was in fact the first ever spring bird on this side of the Atlantic, which meant there was a chance that this one might just not live up to its predecessors' reputation.

And so the long drive to Uig began, va Middlesbrough and Sunderland to pick up a crew of young birders who weren't even alive when the birds turned up in the 80s! Fortunately it wasn't dark for long as we headed North which made the overnight drive easier.

As we headed through the amazing scenery of The Highlands I picked up the news we'd been hoping for on the internet. The Black-billed Cuckoo was still present, alive and well, at 6.24am. I drove faster, despite the fact it would make absolutely no difference to what time the ferry left. We passed several other birders' cars on the way.

The ferry across to Lochmaddy was uneventful, a chance to grab a breakfast and catch up with an hour or so of sleep. Down the gangplank at the other end and we sought out our taxis! Time had passed and it was now getting on for midday. We knew the bird was still there late morning, but there was still the possibility that it would strike us a cruel blow, either dropping dead or healthily flying off.

The taxi to the site seemed like the slowest ever, made worse by the single-track road and a mobile home that didn't know the purpose of passing places.

As we pulled up in the tiny hamlet of Knockintorran there were already maybe 30 birders present, mostly those who'd taken the more expensive charter plane option, though we were completely out-twitched by one team who'd worked out the ferry timetable better than us and arrived a good couple of hours earlier.

Scopes and binoculars were pointing and friends quickly put us onto the bird which was perched on a fence at the back of a garden. The bird was clearly bright and active, moving between bushes and regularly catching large caterpillars. I felt joy, relief and awe all at once.

We could now relax and enjoy the bird in such a wonderful setting. The bird regularly flew between gardens but was always quickly refound, if occasionally disappearing into bushes. It didn't take too long to get great views.

And so, after a very pleasant few hours, we headed back to Lochmaddy ferry terminal. But we weren't headed for the ferry as the next one was tomorrow morning.







Instead a small boat had come over from Uig to pick us up, one usually used for puffin watching on the Shiant Islands. We quickly assigned the inside as the drivers' lounge, a place to catch another hour or so sleep. The crossing was delightfully smooth and we were reunited with our car by 6.30pm.

The long drive home began, via Kyle of Lochalsh for Fish and Chips (I thought it best not to go for battered pizza - a Scottish health speciality I assume).
I managed to get the youngsters back to their beds in the Northeast by 3am, but the 3 hours further south back to The Fens had me beat. I got a long way but finally had to pull into a services for an hour's sleep - my third power nap in two nights.
By 6.30 I was on the road back home. Quite a contrast to where I'd just come from.

Back to life in the slow lane!