One of the biggest surprises of July 2015 was the appearance of a young Red-Footed Falcon in Staffordshire. The 1st summer male chose a small horse paddock adjacent to an old coilry site, and often gave simply mindblowing views- Often assisted (perhaps wrongly) by provisioned feeding by photographer for better photographs.
The bird was first located while I was away on university fieldwork in the Lake District however when we arrived back, I caught the first train up to Stoke- with my suitcase in tow- to attempt to see the bird. I have only seen one previous RFF in the UK, a stonking full adult at Lakenheath, so I was very hopeful to catch up with this one. Luckily, the Clipsons came to the rescue, and picked me up from the station. A short drive later and we were soon enjoying crippling views of what was a superb Falcon!
As soon as we arrived, the bird was showing well, doing its best to not fall of the overhead wires in the fairly strong winds.
As time went, the bird still resided in its paddock, gradually becoming more and more tame, and then the controversy started. Firstly, two men pulled up in a van and attempted to catch the bird, provoking a response from the Police who suggested the immediate cessation of feeding by photographers. Most duly obliged, but the story of this bird didn't end there.
The bird vacated Staffordshire, and then moved over to Linconshire, where it resided at a small nature reserve for a while, continuing to provide good views to a host of appreciative audiences. The bird departed, and the story seemingly ended...
And then the eventful journey of this amazing falcon came to a catastrophic end, when news emerged that the bird had sadly been found shot in Cambridgeshire soon after it departed Linconshire. This sparked a fully justifiable wall of outrage on many social media sites, and the bird made regional and national news outlets. The bird that had caused so much joy and ended its journey by a seemingly random act of persecution. Funds were raised by conservation companies to aid the identification of the criminals however as yet, there has been no result of this, nor the police investigation. Only time will tell.
A weekend in Norfolk with the crew is always a highly
anticipated event. The promise of scarce bird species, good company and
conversation is always a top draw event.
So with a trip planned months upon months in advance, it was
going to be hit or miss as to whether we would have the trip planned to
favourable weather conditions. Time passed, plans were made and possible target
species identified. And as time grew nearer, and nearer, the weather seemed to
get more and more tasty for some migration and with only 2 days to go, it
happened. A large fall hit North Norfolk. Score!
16/10/15
The Friday came, and onwards we went. A very early start
from our midlands homeland had us finding ourselves pulling into a layby at
Beeston Common. An Isabelline Shrike
(ssp L. isabellinus isabellinus)
had been found at the site a few days previously, and with it being a lifer for
everyone in the car, it was perhaps no surprise to head here first. Within a
few minutes, we had the Shrike located, flicking around in the densely
vegetated hawthorn stands. With its plumage being a mix of sandy and reddish
colours, it actually proved to be a very attractive bird. Shrikes are always
highly prized birds, and to start off our weekend with a bird of this class
certainly boded well.
Very aware that we had arrived at simply the perfect time
for migration, itchy feet soon took hold. Firstly by a look around the habitat
on Beeston Common for any further migrants (Marsh Tit and hundreds of inbound Thrushes) and later by thinking
about our next place to go.
As well as the passerine migrants, we were also away that
the weather conditions looked decent for seawatching. With the midlands lacking
‘some sea’ seawatching is a task we don’t manage to achieve often, so while
being so close to the known seawatching hotpot of Sherringham it would have
been rude not to drop in. In the grand scheme of things, it turned out to be
fairly quiet, however we quickly added 7 Common
Scoter, 5 Red-Throated Diver, 5 Great Skua, Mediterranean and Little
Gull to an ever growing day list. The Skuas in particular were greatly
appreciated, with me having had a significant lack of them in the past.
As we sat in a crowded ‘seawatching shelter’ on the
promenade, I received a text. ‘Olive Backed Pipit still at Muckleburgh Hill’…
On our group chat the night before, I was quoted on saying that it wouldn’t be
around by the Friday, and with an afternoon of no reports, it certainly seemed
true.
After wiping off some egg from my face, we jumped in the car
and headed west. Finding the hill, a new site for all of us, proved hard, but
we managed it first try, and quickly made our way up the sandy slope of the
hill. With Thrushes still streaming in off the sea we made our way to the top
of the hill, where a small clearing had been made among the Bracken. The scrum of
twitchers easily giving the site away as where we need to be.
After seemingly an eternity of failing to get onto the bird,
which was showing very briefly and often hidden I finally managed to get a
brief view of the bird as it picked its head up from the vegetation and stood
proud. Olive-backed Pipit. Wow! That
face pattern!
Slowly and stealthily the bird crept through the bracken,
and as the crowd grew, the bird became continually more and more confiding.
After about an hour with the bird, it was creeping around a mere 20ft away.
Absolutely crippling views!
With Wells Wood/ Holkham seemingly being the epicentre of
the fall, it was no surprise to head here next, and it truly was dripping with
birds. Those birds being mostly Goldcrest
and winter Thrushes, but we all knew there were some rare birds lurking in
there! A Blyths Reed Warbler had been knocking around in the Dell, however
after a fair amount of time searching here, this drew a blank. A Short-Eared Owl flew in off the sea and
over our heads before we decided to head further into the woods to try and
locate some of the other autumn migrants.
My main target, without a shadow, was Pallas’s Leaf Warbler, a species I have dreamed about seeing since
I first saw it in a bird book a number of years before. While I had been searching for the Blythes
Reed, the group split and our walkie talkies came in handy when they relayed
news they had just seen a Pallas’s about a mile further into the wood. This
gave me an extra boost and I walked past the Hume’s YBW crowd for views of a
much better bird.
By the time I arrived with my other crew members, the bird
had disappeared, but I went about scanning the hordes of Goldcrests in the
small areas of sycamore and Oak. It was only a minute or so before out of the
leaves flicked a broad yellow supercillium and a broad central crown stripe.
“Pallas’s!”
A few views were had as it flicked along the treeline, but
then it flew across the track, and into a small line of trees on the marshes
side. For the next 15 minutes, the bird performed very well in a small
sycamore, often giving binocular filling views! Superb! Dreamy views.
Unfortunately I was too busy swooning over the bird and by
the time I had realised I should grab the digiscoping setup, the bird had
melted back into the dense vegetation. I again stayed behind for further views
but this proved pointless, and I missed views of the Hume’s as a result.
We headed back for further attempts to locate the Blyths
however, but this was again hard work, however at least this time we struck
lucky as while scanning a passing Tit flock, out flicked another Pallas’s Leaf Warbler, right above the
heads of the crowd! This one proceeded to flash its rump shamelessly as it
moved across the Silver Birches, before again, melting into the canopy.
As we drove out of the car park at the Well’s Wood end, we
stopped on the entrance road, where we had good, but distant views of 2 Great Grey Shrikes, both perched like sentinels
waiting for the next passing exhausted migrant. (I imagine Goldcrests were on
the agenda).
With the day quickly closing in we wanted to add some
waterbirds to our weekend tally, and so therefore it was no hard decision to
head to Titchwell RSPB. A quick loop searching for Passerines within the scrub
around the centre didn’t produce much, so we headed out onto the marshes.
The expected cast of waders was present on the tidal and
saltmarshes, swarms of Golden Plover
and winter Duck filled the skies, together with sizable flocks of both Godwit species and Ruffs. A couple of late Avocet
were a nice addition as we stood waiting for the roost. Only 2 Marsh Harriers arrived, however the
Gull roost developed, and in dropped 3 Yellow-legged
Gulls. At last light, a Barn Owl
quartered the reedbed, a perfect way to end a superb day 1 of the Norfolk
weekend.
17/10/16- Durnham Deapdale- 6:45am.
Wanting to maximise time in the field, the crew was up
pre-dawn with the intention of getting into the field by the time it got light.
As the first shades of blue emerged, the sound of Pink-Footed Geese built, and soon the sky was filled as they
vacated their roost to head to their feeding areas inland.
With the wind coming in at a strong north-easterly, and high
tides, we decided a quick shot at seawatching would be worthwhile to ‘test the
water’. If things were moving, we would stay.
We arrived on the Cley shingle bank by 7:30, and then
settled ourselves in for a shift. There was a fair bit of Duck movement, but
our targets were proving elusive, those being the rarer Shearwaters and Skuas.
A few Red-Throated Divers were
moving back and forth, and a close single Red-Breasted
Merganser flew past and along Blakeney Point.
Scanning into the distance, a Shearwater was approaching
from the east, low down across the water before wheeling up in a wide loop.
This behaviour quickly indicated we were on one of the targets and soon the
bird approached its closest point, revealing all dark plumage and long wings,
the first Sooty Shearwater of the
weekend!
The next hour provided a further 5 Sootys and a number of Great Skuas. A Sooty was tracking west
when I removed my eye from the scope, to see a dark seabird approaching close
in from the west. Quickly the lighter build of the bird was apparent in
comparison to the earlier Greats, however the bird still seemed barrel chested
and heavy. Approaching within 100ft of the beach viewpoint, it was clear we had
our first Pomarine Skua!
3 of the crew members were further east then us, so a call
on the walkie talkie tried to get them onto it, but in return we received a
message that they’d just seen a Lapland Bunting. Long story short, a walk out
there and a thorough search couldn’t relocate it and they didn’t see the Skua,
so with the continuing allure of Well’s Wood, the two members who hadn’t seen
the Lap cut our losses.
Following a quick Bap in Wells Harbour, we pulled into a
very full car park by 10:30. A Red
Flanked Bluetail, found yesterday after we had left was item number 1 on
our list, so we quickly hot footed it down there. It didn’t take long for our
first view, a ‘Robin shaped bird’ dropping down out of the tangle of bushes
followed by a strong flash of blue as it flicked back up.
The crowd here was huge, surprisingly for this increasingly
common migrant. The bird moved, and the crowd shifted. I managed a few more
brief, obscured views (while most of the crowd, and the rest of the crew
managed great views), but after having seen the wintering Avon bird a number of
times, I wasn’t going to chase better views of this one.
After this, we didn’t strike lucky with any of the rarities
reported within the woods, and with it being 1:30, activity was dropping off on
the passerine front, so again, we decided that Titchwell would be a good shout.
We were still missing a number of species from our trip list that we could fill
in.
Although it was much the same as the day before, with large
flocks of ducks and waders, we managed to find a few of our targets. Pochard and Red-crested Pochard were well represented, with 13 and 9
individuals. Good numbers of both. Our main reasoning for missing them the day
before being that we didn’t visit their favoured pool.
Beyond the pools, the beach held the expected variety of
shoreline waders, with Grey Plover, Knot, Sanderling, Turnstone
and Bar-tailed Godwit all being
represented. As we had walked towards the beach, we had been treated to rather
good views of Spotted Redshank. And
again on the way back, we connected with the same bird, although this time it
was feeding right beside the track with a couple of Black-Tailed Godwits. Phenomenal views!
With the early mornings catching up with us, we decided to
take the rest of the evening off, enjoying food and drinks in a nearby pub.
18/10/15
We again were out for dawn, this time with the intention of
finding something for ourselves. We had racked our brains the night before
about where to head with the best options of finding birds, but being able to
avoid the majority of the crowds. Wells, as it had been all weekend, was packed
with birders, so if anything was in there, you’d imagine it was found, so where
else? Cley? Stiffkey?
We chose Burnham Ovary marshes and dunes. A good variety of
species can be found, and indeed we found many. The roadside fields were
covered in Geese, pink-Footed, Greylag, Brent and Egyptians.
Smaller numbers of ducks and waders were present in the fields. We checked the
pool and the estuarine mud after wading through hordes of Goldcrest to the seawall, adding Little Grebe stalking the edges of the reeds.
We walked further, and another Short-Eared Owl flew over our heads as it came in off the sea
before dropping into the Sueada on the saltmarsh. A Greenshank
flew past calling among the omnipresent Redshanks
and a number of Common Snipe flew
out of the vegetation as the tide approached. We reached the dunes, with Reed buntings, Robins and Thrushes all
scattering from the bushes but these seemed fairly quiet. (If only we had
checked the same area of scrub a little further west- we may have found the
Little Bunting seen later in the day at the same site!). A single Wheatear was
flicking around We settled on top of the dunes and scoped the sea for a while,
and also scanned the roosting wader flock. 18 Common Scoter flew past as well as 3 each of Red-Breasted Merganser and Red-Throated
Diver. A Great Crested Grebe-
our first of the weekend, sat out on the sea.
A number of Gannets were passing offshore, and sure enough,
after a while, a number of Great Skua
started moving past. An hours watch produced 15, including a flock of 6 which
lumbered offshore before settling on the sea, including some fairly good views.
As A Skua lumbered west, a more ‘flappy’ bird further out at sea immediately
drew attention. The bird flew nearer and nearer until it revealed itself to be
an ‘Eared Owl’. Although we had seen a number of SEO coming ‘in off’ we had not watched one struggling across the
waves until this point. Clearly exhausted, the bird tried its best to shake the
attention of a party of passing Gulls until it reached land. We had been
watching it or about 4 minutes before it finally struck land, flying over the dunes
and dropping into the long grass on the marshes.
We walked east, which honestly was all a bit quiet, with
only a few hundred winter thrushes, Meadow Pipits and Goldcrest to show for the effort. We walked all the way to the western
end of Holkham wood, where a quick scan revealed the Great White Egret was still present, feeding in one of the pools
there, although very distant. A number of Raptors were also in the sky here,
with 4 Marsh Harrier, 2 Buzzard, Kestrel and Peregrine.
With a long journey home, we walked back to the car, with
our plan to find something interesting unfulfilled. A Bunting that if we had
walked 30 meters in the opposite direction may have shown itself to us, and a
brief probable large Pipit sp seen by one of the crew, which despite further
searching couldn’t be refound (A Richards was found in the exact same spot the
day after). As we were about to drop over the seawall, a superb Merlin gave a cracking flight view,
before perching up on a post on the saltmarsh.
With our weekend drawing to a close, we drove west, with a
last ditch stop at Choesley Barns to find a few farmland species. Sadly we
couldn’t find any of our targets here, huge coveys of Red-legged but no Grey Partridges and no Corn Buntings. A large
mixed wader flock were there to greet us goodbye to end the trip on a cheery
note.
Overall an excellent weekend. Considering we had planned the
trip months in advance, and not last minute due to weather conditions, we obviously
struck lucky. Lots of great birds, great company and lots of birdy chat. What
could be better!
