A life tick 👍✔✔✔ Scroll down to fourth paragraph for the all important bird that 'turned up'!

I haven't written anything on this secondary blog for a while now, but we have been to birder's paradise in the last two weeks.   Northumberland and now Scotland.

Day 1 in Northumberland and we're off to see the Pacific golden plover that has been hanging around the headland at Boulmer.  I didn't mind going to see this, Boulmer beach turns out to be beautiful and the dunes are full of wild flowers.  We walk to the headland and it's obvious something has indeed turned up.  I happily stand there looking at a beautiful bird that has turned up in the wrong place, as the name suggests.  I am sad thinking about it being there on its own without a friend.  The headland is full of curlews (my favourite bird), golden plovers, knot, dunlin, terns (Common, Artic, Roseate, Sandwich).  Today (August 21st) I learn that the Pacific Golden Plover has moved on, to somewhere down the coast.

This was the view as we rounded the headland, at least we knew we were in the right place.

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We got on a boat to the Farne Islands and saw some puffins on the sea ,by this time they are moving on to who knows where, having already raised their chicks.  There were lots of kittiwakes and shags, who are amusing to watch.  There were also lots of grey seals, looking at us curiously from the sea.

THE TICK......... 

Now, moving on to the main attaction,  wait for it.... the Greenish warbler.  Sounds made up to me, but over to Lindisfarne we go, to find said bird.  It is in some willows apparently.  Mr Birder has some vague instructions to follow.  We race up a path to some willows and realise with some frustration these are the wrong ones. Birder is anxious; he can't see any other twitchers.   I am slightly irritated.  I walk ahead and find a chap with binoculars who is sure the bird has been seen in different willows round the bend of the path.  I phone Mr Birder who catches up.  Again, no other birders about, which is strange for a rare bird alert.  We race on, me stopping to look at wild flowers in the duney landscape.  Finally, we see a man with binoculars who tells us we need to be further round altogether, not far from where we were to start with.  Showing well apparently!!  At last we arrive at the willow, where there is another birder who has just arrived, hopeful.  Telescope is set up and there it is!!  We think.  Two more birders arrive and set up their telescopes.  Yes, there's the Greenish warbler, but what does the supercilium look like?    The first birder and I admit to not knowing what a supercilium is.  We find out.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercilium.   

What about the wing bar though?  Nobody can be sure that it is the right bird until the wing bar has been identified.  Yes, there's the wingbar.  I am invited to look through one of the telescopes and there it is, a rather lovely little green (yes!) bird with a defined supercilium and a wing bar that is correct ad in place.

https://www.birdguides.com/species-guide/ioc/phylloscopus-trochiloides

and here is the twitch!!

A twitch in time.........

Autumn is the time for migrants and therefore a time when a birder is edgy.  There might be something turning up at any minute!!  Birds are flying south and they often stop off in the UK to eat and catch up with their mates.  (Well o.k., I added that last bit for sake of a story).  Rare Bird Alert is checked hourly in case of that mega-rarity.  

This has been a glorious autumn for colours and so I have been happy to accompany said Birder to the Kent countryside and beyond. 

We were at Oare Marshes in Kent, and were looking for a long-billed Dowitcher apparently.  It didn't show - we "dipped" it.  That's the way you describe missing the bird, by the way.  We did see a lovely water rail which was "showing well". 

A couple of weeks later we were going to Suffolk to visit some friends.  Rare Bird alert said there Cliff Swallow at RSPB Minsmere.  So at 3pm we drive into Minsmere.  The light is fading and the passenger is edgy and nervous.  There are a group of about 30 people (mostly men I have to say) and they are looking through telescopes and binoculars.  "They've got the bird!" shouts my companion.  I told him to just get out and run.  I parked the car and was more interested in finding the loo, quite frankly.  

The Cliff Swallow was seen and my friend was in "high spirits" which we added to later, with lots of wine.  It flew over my head, but I didn't see it. Oh, well, I can live with that. 

Apparently Joe "had" four waxwings over Greenwich Park recently.  There are hundreds elsewhere in the country and that is a bird I would to see!

Water rail, if you look carefully.

Waxwing - courtesy of the BBC 

Introducing "The Patch" and realising I knew nothing.

I have been a member of the RSPB for years.  I’ve always liked birds, in a vague way.   I put food in the garden and will spend ages in the winter, watching as the sparrows, blue tits, great tits, long tailed tits, wrens, blackbirds, wood pigeons, starlings and collared doves come to eat.  I was happy to be able to identify a black cap last winter, and then two black caps!  Thanks to the RSPB Handbook of British Birds.

I was working in Deptford one winter and would walk through Brookmill Park to work.  I was amazed at how many other birds I saw.  I didn’t know what they were really.  I thought I recognised a chaffinch and maybe that green one was a greenfinch? It was a relaxing walk to work and I realised I wanted to know who these birds were.   I was very excited when I saw a Little Grebe and wouldn’t have known what it was had I not been following a local birder on twitter.  Brookmill Park was his “patch”.   (Lesson 1 in Birding vocabulary).  

Birds I have seen there are: Goldcrest, Redwing, great spotted woodpecker, Song Thrush, Goldfinch, Greenfinch and the lovely Kingfishers.  He was there every morning, listing the birds he had seen.  I started to engage with the tweets and managed to get him to take me out birding.  We went to Foots Cray Meadows.   That was a great day and I learnt a lot. And realised that I knew nothing.  Some of the birds I had never even heard of.  Like Siskins for instance.  We saw about 50 of them on that day.  You can look up this pretty bird here:

https://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/birdguide/name/s/siskin/

Maybe Conrad would like to share his list? 

In the Springtime.

In the summer.

In the Winter.

The List - Learning a new vocabulary and it's not the same as "twitching"

I visited RSPB Minsmere years ago, and took two small children.  There was talk of a bittern, but I didn't see it.  There were cries of "It's up!" when a Marsh Harrier appeared and a scuffle as men with binoculars rushed to see the raptor.  I was slightly bemused, although I could see it was impressive.  I did see a Hummingbird hawk moth on that visit, which appeared in many a drawing for a while afterwards.  I also had binocular envy.  There are some seriously good ones out there.  I have since bought myself a pair, that are good enough for me.  I enjoy the mindfulness of birdwatching, but I can't see that I will ever take the "List" seriously.  

The "list", well it's obvious really.  A birder will start a list on January 1st. This is the "year list".  The aim is to see as many birds as you possibly can in a year.  A good way to start is to get up at 6 a.m. on January 1st and go to, for instance, Dungeness.  Here you are likely to see many different varieties and it will start the year off well.  (That's New Year's eve out then.)   Although, you can also have a "day list", which, obviously is just the birds you have seen that day.  Then again you can have a "Lewisham list". I think you get the idea.  

My interest in birds started with the ordinary.  That is, the ones that you see everyday.  Unfortunately, some of these are getting more and more scarce, but that is for another blog entry.  I will leave you with some drawings.  Inspired by my local wildlife.  The humble starling and the much maligned pigeon.