Blue House Farm and Canvey Point revisited

The Pec was back. An hour away, nice reserve, easy decision. When I got there it was clear a number of others had thought similarly and folks turned up all morning, consequently the hide was well populated but good natured throughout.

The Pec was not visible at first. A wader about 100 yards out looked promising; it was asleep and stood facing away, but a brief lift of the head gave encouragement - not a Snipe. An hour later and it had rotated slightly to show white on the flanks and underneath, and then about thirty minutes later it completed the rotation et Voila! An unbroken neat breast band. Pectoral Sandpiper on the year list.

As is often the case when going see rarities, the star of the show was something different. In this case, a juvenile Curlew Sandpiper. It was consorting with two Ruff and came close under the hide. The three of them stood on a small island and the reflection of them in water as they stood bathed in direct sunlight from behind was something to behold. Needless to say my photo does not do justice.

The chap next to me had some top gear - a prime 500mm lens with a 1.4x converter. He very kindly offered to let me put my camera base on his lens and soon I was clicking away. What a lens! Auto focussing, the lot. There's a couple of cropped photos below. the poor composition is my fault but the crispness of the birds is something to behold. A very generous offer to put thousands of pounds of gear in my hands, the kind of encounter that gives you a warm glow all day.

Hobby hunting over the marsh, adult Yellow Wagtail in front of the hide and 2 Lesser Whitethroat in the car park completed the list.

I had intended to go to East Tilbury on the rising afternoon tide to get waders plus maybe some sea birds on the SE wind, but with the Curlew Sand in the bag I was off to Canvey Point instead. There had been some action in the morning but there was nothing to be seen when I got there. We managed 20 Commic Terns upstream, a Hobby from across the river ended up flying right over our heads, and towards the end of the watch a distant Manx Shearwater was drifting out of the estuary. That just left the local birds to admire; several Mediterranean Gulls, hundreds of Oystercatchers, a small flock of sparkling Grey Plovers, and a few Sandwich Terns. With some excellent company and warm sunshine it was a cracking second part to the day's watching.

BirdGuides has WWBT, Pom Skua, sooty shearwater and several Black Terns in the estuary today, but these birds are generally the reward to locals for many hours watching, and its an achievement to see any of these if you just turn up for a couple of hours on the off chance. Today was just nice to sit in the sun and see what drifted past.

Blue House Farm EWT.

In search of a Pectoral Sandpiper. Needless to say it had gone. Despite this, or perhaps even because of this, a chance to enjoy the current glut of waders and other associated birdlife.

A juvenile Spotted Redshank was the star of the show, with a few Ruff, some Ringed Plover and Little Ringed Plover, Black-Tailed Godwit, 3 Greenshank, Green Sandpiper, Snipe, and Dunlin. Just about all giving good views (see some uncommonly non-rubbish photos by me below!) Otherwise there were several Yellow Wagtails, 4 separate Marsh Harriers, and a few other bits and pieces. Some excellent chat with a couple of reserve managers in the hide too as they discussed the challenges both bureaucratic and environmental of running the reserve. the current crop of waders is partly due to a brief flooding of sea water to help eradicate an invasive Tasmanian plant, so is unlikely to be repeated next year. All the money has historically come from the EU, so there are some challenges in the years ahead to persuade the UK government to continue this work.

A really nice reserve. And what a pleasure to be able to set my scope up in a hide and look through it without having to get into a back-crippling half-squat.

Thames Estuary Waders

Vange then Rainham.  Lesser Yellowlegs, Spotted Redshank, Ruff, Blackwit, and an accommodating male Bearded Reedling at Vange, Then Temminck's Stint, Little Stint, Wood Sandpiper, Greenshank, Ruff, Blackwit, Snipe, Common Sandpiper at Rainham. All views good but distant.

Here's the Lesser Legs at Vange.

here's a close up to help you find it.

Norfolk - Monday 9th May

What could be better than a hot sunny Monday in May on the Norfolk coast? Well the previous day would have been better, but such is birding.

Early doors at Pat'sPool. A distant Temminck's Stint, but well lit and good views, then a selection of waders - Greenshank, Ruff, Little Ringed Plover, Black Tailed Godwit, Dunlin, Common Sandpiper, and of course Avocet and Redshank but those pass unnoticed now. A White Wagtail in the corner, and a spectacular Marsh Harrier over. Then everything went up, or off, as a Peregrine came over. Later a Hobby had a similar effect.

On to Titchwell and a packed Parinder Hide. Both stints are here today hidden on the far bank of the near island. One emerges, but which is it? We almost take a vote, but the consensus is Little Stint; black legs, rufous in the back, slightly tatty breast patterning. Then someone points out that the Temminck's Stints are sat in front of us, and indeed they are; like mini Common Sandpipers, dull grey-green. Fantastic views. Less than fantastic photos below.

Just time for Red Crested Pochard from the screen by the Fen hide, and then onto Cholesely Drying Barns. There are some other birders, and we peer through the hedge. A Dotterel, barely visible in the dip of a ploughed field. Then another, and as our eye gets in we get to 13 Dotterel. Great views, less than great photos.

The stand out birds of the day were the Ruff. About 6 males in total plus one Reeve. The males all in spectacular breeding plumage. On return I dug out my copy of "The Ruff" by Johan G Van Rhijn, one of the Poyser series. I recall something about the colours of the ruffs signifying social status; that the black ruffs are dominant at leks, that the white ones are pages to the dominant males, and the more pages a dominant male has the more successful it is at breeding, and there are a third group of males who go from lek to lek challenging the dominant males. However on re-reading it is not as clear as this. The colour combinations of ruff and ear coverts are not fixed or limited, and social position is not fixed. Some pages can step up to be dominant if the dominant male disappears, for instance. This seems to be a current theme of sociology; that we had a phase when we were able to identify rules of behaviour for certain species, but now we find increasingly that, as in humans, social rules of the animal kingdom are there to be broken. Nevertheless, whatever the actual details of the lek, to see the males in that brief period when they have the full mating regalia is really something special.