Bath Time

The drinking and bathing pool in our little waterfall down to the pond is well sheltered and shaded and ideal for the birds to bathe or drink safely. however it is very poorly lit and I have no position I can get to so that the sun is behind me, nevertheless it makes fascinating watch for the comfort of the lounge through the open doors. Here are a few of the birds I watched during an hour or so today.

Male Blackcap

Goldfinches

Great Tit

young Greenfinch

young House Sparrow

Starling

female Blackcap

Blue Tit

Chiffchaff and Dunnock, note the Chiffchaff is ringed.

female Blackbird

Male Blackcap, returned or another one.

Dunnock

female Chaffinch

male Chaffinch

A Crossbill day

A call from Jack made me abandon the hope of finding a Sibe at Bockhill in favour of searching for the equivalent of a needle in a haystack. 

 Crossbill

We were off to Hemstead Forest where the eruptive group of Crossbills there, now were accompanies by both a Two-barred Crossbill and one, possibly two Parrot Crossbills, both of which would be Kent ticks for me (what it is to be a low lister!).

Every now and again the "chip chip" call of Crossbills alerted to us as they came in to the favoured area, near a small pool that they were drinking at.

Various candidates were closely scrutinised and although the bills were variable in size none leapt out and grabbed the intention.

Some look good from one angle, only to disappoint when they were minutely analysed by the array of telescopes waiting there.

I have to admit, that Parrot or not I see few enough Crossbills to make the bulk standard model well worth watching, they are a real miracle of evolution, and I sure that, if he were alive today, Darwin would be studying them as the various species (if that is what they are) diverge from the norm in proof of his theory.

The Two-barred turned up, very briefly, for a drink, shortly after we arrived but it was several hours later that it returned and showed properly in a bare tree, alongside several Crossbills.

The bird on the left, bill hidden became the object of much interest as it was, when it turned, the owner of  one of the larger bills, but unfortunately not large enough for a Parrot Crossbill.

As we left several groups were flying around calling , hopefully the Parrot will remain in the area for a future look. BUT HERE IS A WARNING. When we got back to the cars one of them had been broken into, by smashing a front window. Obviously a group of cars, left unattended on in an isolated area  had attracted a thief, care needs to be taken!

An adds and sods entry

Just how bad has spring been? Well I've got one measure that may not be conventional but I am pretty sure that it gives a good reflection of how dreadful the month of May was for wild life. During this, and the last six years I've run two moth traps on just about very night in May. In the previous six years I caught on average 585 moths of  76 species. This May I caught just 176 moths of 21 species. I can believe that this is just a freak result, 31 nights results is a lot of data. SO far June has started almost as badly, but at least a few new species have appeared, although they've been common and expected.

This Male Muslin moth appeared on May 31st, the latest "first" date I've recorded since I started mothing 14 years ago, and nearly two months later than in 2011, the best May I've had mothing.

The Heart and Dart is usually one of the commonest moths I catch and it usually emerges anywhere from late April to mid-May. This year the first record was June 3rd. What worries me is the fact that many of our small bird species time their breeding to coincide with the abundance of the prey they survive on, but with very few adult moths around there can be very few caterpillars to feed the young Blue Tits etc.

Now two pictures that amused me yesterday. I don't usually use very much bird food through the summer, bur so far this year it's being going quite quickly, so I went to Malibu Grains at Shatterling to pick up supplies. On the way back I popped into the Restharrow Scrape hide to see if anything unusual had turned up.

 In front of the hide a Mallard family was feeding near the edge, but it all seemed to much for this little fellow who dosed off for about 5 minutes until mum came back and called him to attention.

This is obviously what the well dressed Drake Tufted Duck wearing this season, a rather nice, short green skirt!

And lastly, a not expected disappointment, but at least tinged with some good news.

 Last Saturday Nigel Jarman found a Crested Lark on the undercliff at Kingsdown. It only stayed a short time before flying north, but long enough for Nigel to get a photograph. This is about the 24th record for the UK and fourth for Kent. I thought I'd take a stroll along there, just in case it had decided to return. The wall where Nigel  got the photo was there, and with a LBJ (little brown job) on top. But it wasn't the Crested Lark, the apparent crest is a spider it's carrying in its beak, it was a Rock Pipit.

Although it was disappointing that it wasn't the Lark, it was also good news that there was a pair of Rock Pipits there carrying food, as that presumably means that they are feeding young.

Blue Connections

There's a strong connection between Dover and the USA, where I've been birding this month. A trip to the cliff top car park by the Monument finds you parking next to the Bluebirds Tea Room. Because, as I've written before, the 1941 song was penned by American composers Nat Burton and Walter Kent they were unawre that Bluebirds didn't occur in the UK. Although the Bluebirds weren't around, there were of course plenty of American Servicemen who helped to keep the Dover Straits open.

We saw two of the three Bluebird species that are so dear to the hearts of the American people. The Western Bluebird above is found nesting only in the western third of States and southern British Columbia. It is mainly a bird of  farmland and orchards.

Unfortunately this picture was taken through a glass window, so it doesn't do the bird complete justice. Mountain Bluebirds are what the name says, birds of the mountains, again in the west of the North American continent. In the breeding season they are normally found at over 5000 ft but in the winter they descend to open lowlands and deserts. The third species, the Eastern Bluebird, has a much larger range and can be found in much of the States, east of the Rockies. It is in decline, due of course to the follies of man, who introduced House Sparrows and Starlings to North America. These now compete for the tree nest holes used by the Bluebirds. There are a large number of nest boxes now put up specifically to help these birds.

Back in the UK I was pleased to see this stunning Yellow Wagtail at the Restharrow Scrape yesterday. We may not be able to offer competition to the Bluebirds but the Yellow Wagtail will hold it's own in a beauty contest with any of the American Orioles.

This Hooded Oriole has chosen a rather nice background against which to display his finery.

Beautiful but an assassin

There is something fascinating in the antics of a Sparrowhawk. Mostly they are seen flying swiftly between trees and bushes in pursuit of their prey. Sometimes, when they land they are aware of small birds still hiding in the shrubbery and they spend a time climbing around hoping either to spook a small bird into making a fateful dash for it or they use their extremely long legs to reach in and grab the hapless prey.

This beautiful male Sparrowhawk has popped into the garden a few times in the last week or so, although I've not seen it be successful in that time, Today it landed on an archway, half way down the garden and although all the small birds had vanished, as far st I could see, it was still very actively looking around.

It moved from one side of the arch to the other, but nothing moved below in the bushes.

So deeply was it concentrating on what was happening around him that I was able to open the window and photograph with out the encumbrance  of a rain marked pane.

Eventually it moved to the side of the garden, in thick vegetation, but when it reappeared it hadn't been successful, and the flock of Chaffinches seems to have remained in tact.

A Reed Too Far

There have been a quite few Penduline Tits in Kent and this century it has been annual. Never-the-less it is still a vagrant and can be difficult to see. The one currently at Stodmarsh is extremely obliging and while I was there today it ensured that all its prospective admirers received long and good views. The Eurasian Penduline Tit is the sole European representative of a small family that has seven representatives in Africa and three (apart from this one) in Asia. In addition the Verdin from North America ans two other Asian tit-like birds are sometimes placed in the family, Remizidae. The four European and Asian species are sometimes considered a single species. The family seems to be a real headache for the taxonomists! The species has undergone a large range extension since 1950, reaching the Netherlands and N E France by 1985, although there are only a total of 2 or 300 pairs. There are much larger populations in Spain and Germany and if vagrants continue to arrive in Kent with the frequency they have over the last few years  proven breeding can't be too long in coming.

It did spend some time tuck away at the bottom of a clump of osiers while it meticulously preened, but even then it remained in view, albeit half hidden.

When it came out into the reed maces it sometimes started quite low, but normally it was visible and moved up the stems to be in good view.

While I was watching it did maintain a reasonable distance and was never in comfortable range for a frame filler, but in all honesty it was the best I've ever watched one either here or on the continent.

 If they do colonise the population is not easy to estimate as they have a polygamous mating system and they have no pair bonding.

 Although they are mainly insectivorous, and take other small invertebrates in summer I presume that they eat the small seeds when they dismantle reed-mace, as this one does so expertly.

 Although they are not the best, I've included a few more shots of this charming visitor, it might be the only chance I get, then ext one might not be so helpful.

 It seemed to spend a good time on each head, bits of fluff blowing around, betraying its whereabouts even when you lost it for a moment.

 After a while it would either move to another reed-mace or back into the osiers for a preen. I was almost as if the constant bits of fluff mean that it had to look after its feathers more frequently than other small birds.

 Where the occur on the continent their presence is often given away by the very high pitched, plaintive, far carrying "tssssseeooo" call.

 I think when it came to the top like this it was getting ready to move on the next reed mace.

This was a really big head and it got fluffed out so much that the bird more or less disappeared into the middle of it.

A Grey Day

All my good intentions of posting on a more or less daily basis went out of the window last week due to a multitude of either reasons or excuses. Today was MOT day for my car and while it was being done I walked down to Kearsney Abbey and along to Bushy Ruff. There is always a change of seeing a Kingfisher and Grey Wagtails are usually around.

Overall it was a quiet day and the birds, apart from the numerous Mallards, Coots, Moorhens and Gulls were fairly scarce. One Grey Heron sat high up on one of the trees on the island opposite the tea rooms at the Abbey. The snow had ceased and it looked fairly comfortable surveying the park from an elevated view point.

Normally Grey Wagtails are easy to find but today I had to work quite hard and only found a single bird at the far end of Bushy Ruff. Although it was a grey day and it seemed as if someone had turned the lights out I was given a good performance as this bird used a branch projecting into the high water for fly-catching.

I did think that this was probably a first winter bird but reading through Pipits and Wagtails of Europe, Asia and North America by Per Alström & Krister Mild ageing and sexing Grey Wagtails in winter isn't as easy as I had supposed.

After a fair bit of log running my show was ended when it bird flew across the Dour and vanished in the trees opposite.

I had a look at the ponds on the other side of the road. still hoping to come across a Kingfisher. I was not lucky in this respect but there was a group of six Gadwalls quite near the edge. Whether it's because this lake is less disturbed than Bushy Ruff I don't know, but this Gadwall seem to favour this side of the road.