Sheppey & Hampstead Heath Jan 2020

Sheppey & Hampstead Heath January 2020

By the end of January I was getting desperate to find a short eared owl, I was sure I was the only person who’d never found one now! So when a friend offered me a lift to Elmley I accepted the offer straight away!  The plan was for me to try and see all five owl species in a single day. 

First thing in the morning I headed onto to Hampstead Heath to have a look for the tawny. I soon found 3 meadow pipits hiding in the damp grass and a huge flock of at least sixty siskin. I then met Sam Levy and we headed to towards to kenwood to have a look around. Imagine my disappointment when, on the one day I really wanted to see it, the tawny owl wasn’t there! Despite this we found seven goldcrest ,a few gadwall and a kestrel but not much else. While Sam continued his walk I headed off to Charing Cross to catch the train. I arrived in Sevenoaks half an hour later where I continued the journey by car with my friend Henry who I’d met at rainham a few months before.

On arriving at elmley we were greeted by several marsh Harriers, a very pale buzzard which I mistook for a rough legged buzzard, plenty of lapwing, a pair of shelduck, redshanks, brown hares and thirty or so curlew along the entry road.

Within seconds of getting out of the car I had two lifers! First a long eared owl hiding in the trees through someone’s scope followed by the brilliant sight of a short eared owl perched only thirty metres away! While still in the car park we had fly over black tailed godwits and a raven

Short eared owl, a long awaited lifer

Spot the long eared owl

We then proceeded towards an old building where we could apparently see little owl. long before we made it there we were stopped by several incredible short eared owls hunting along the side of the path who showed incredibly!

Short eared owls being kinda friendly

We’d feared the grey weather might bring rain and ruin our chances of seeing owls but instead it had put the whole island in constant dim dusk-like state which meant the owls were hunting all day! At the end of the path we were treated to the grim view across Sheppey towards the river. By the riverside was a large reedbed where we could make out distant marsh harriers hunting.

Distant marsh harrier 

Eventually someone picked out the little owl on the ruined building (a school I believe). 

We spent another hour watching the short eared owls battling along the edge of the path giving some amazing photo opportunities (all of which I missed out on)

My incredible action shots

Then we headed over towards the sea wall where I hoped to see some waders. We didn’t get very far before we were distracted by owls again though! The bay was full of wigeon but the high tide meant the only waders visible were a few turnstone and a redshank.

Turnstones

We decided to head back towards the car park in the hope of finding a barn owl rather than continuing along the sea wall. Near the car park another helpful birder put us onto a pair of peregrine perched around a kilometre away! I was amazed that anyone had seen them from so far off and even more so when they then found a merlin at a similar distance. I had a look through the scope and decided I’d have to take their word for it that the distant blob was even a bird. For that reason, merlin isn’t on my year list. We failed to find any barn owls but as we drove out of the reserve we were treated to awesome views of a short eared owl alongside the car! In all it was a very successful day and I’d got my two target birds without any trouble at all!

France birding August 2019

Southern France August 2019

A trip to the Pyrenees was something I’d been looking forward to for months and I was just getting into birding I was excited to see what I’d find! I saw a lot more than I’d hoped with around 30 lifers (some more basic than others).

Having completed the 9 hour train journey from London to Perpignan, we stayed the night in the city. Even as we got out of the cab there were a couple of moorish geckos running around street lamps and windows! The next morning we went for a quick walk around town before we got the bus towards the mountains. By a little canal we saw our first lifer of the trip, a white wagtail (although I didn’t realise it was a separate species at the time). Other than that the city was fairly quiet for birds.

The bus left us at Vinca, a town next to a huge reservoir (which I foolishly ignored) in the tet river valley. I had a look in the woods before lunch but finding nothing but a blue tit I felt a bit disheartened and wondered if perhaps my expectations had been too high. 

After a misunderstanding which left us waiting for lift in town for a couple of hours, we ended up at the house we were staying at. Perfectly positioned at the bottom of a valley in the mountains, it looked out over kilometres of unbroken forest but all seemed quiet for birds aside from a kestrel. I sat there feeling a bit annoyed, how could I be here and be disappointed! But it didn’t last long, a short toed eagle over the distant peaks caught my interest, followed by a distant pair of serin in a dead tree, a black redstart in the neighbors garden and best of all a hoopoe which my brother spotted flying over the garden! All this without leaving the garden! The next day we had a two day hike planned so we headed to bed early.

The next morning we started on a beautiful damp sunrise surrounded by swallows. No sooner than we’d stepped onto the road the only bee eater of the trip flew over our heads. The next couple of hours walking were fairly uneventful with golden eagle, green lizard and a flock of crag martins (I think).

When we stopped for lunch I saw my first ever firecrest and a Pyrenean Brook newt. The next seven hours passed without many interesting birds aside from crested tits and despite obvious sign of black woodpeckers there were none to be found.

When we finally got out the woods and above the tree line we were greeted by an odd group birds foraging in the grass in varying shades of brown and yellow. They were remarkably tame and we stopped for a couple of minutes to watch them. I looked them up that night and discovered that they were citril finches. One final surprise that day was a couple of southern chamois below the mountain refuge we were staying at.

The next morning the second I went out the door, there were birds. Alpine accentor on the steps outside the door,crossbill and citril finches showing feet from the refuge ! On the terrifying climb up to the peak we saw ptarmigan, alpine chough and griffon vultures. The climb back down the mountain passed without much event. 

View outside the refuge

Citril finch and crossbill 

The next day we had a couple of golden oriole from the balcony, some great spotted woodpeckers and one lesser spotted woodpecker that landed in the garden. Calling regularly in the woods were what I believe was wryneck although we never found one.

On the way to the next location, we ended up waiting 3 hours for a train but it was a wait well spent with serin,golden oriole, black redstart, cirl bunting and griffon vultures In and around the station.

At the the next train station we saw a couple of golden eagles and when we arrived the garden was stuffed with black redstart. It was bitterly cold and mist hung around all the mountains that evening but by the morning the sun had burned it off.

An early walk in the woods revealed 17 black kite and a couple of goldcrests. The next morning we had a spectacular fly by from a short toed eagle only a few metres away! 

I also saw red backed shrike on the way to the shops. A hike in the valley d’eyne nature reserve had us find bullfinch, firecrest, dipper, red backed shrike, golden eagle, griffon vulture, short toed eagle and alpine marmots.

Short toed eagle, dipper, red backed shrike and firecrest 

 A walk at night saw two juvenile fire salamander. 

There was also a common redstart In the garden.  A couple more bullfinch and spotted flycatcher on the edge of town were nice too. The final day in the mountains had plenty of griffon vultures, crested tits and ravens but not much else. On the return journey back to Perpignan I came across another dipper!

Finally before going home we were to spend two days at the beach but surprisingly I had several more lifers. It was just the same place as I’ve always gone to with the family but only recently did I find out it’s one of the best migration viewpoints in France and gets thousands of honey buzzard, as well as pallid harriers and red footed falcons etc. Unfortunately for me I didn’t know this at the time and migration hadn’t started yet anyway.

When we arrived we decided to walk over to the beach across a rocky plateau. The moment we stepped out of town we were greeted by the scratchy calls of various warblers. The most obvious were Sardinian warblers but I’m fairly sure I saw Dartford and spectacled warblers too!

The next two days we did the same thing of walking across the plateau to the beach. We saw a nice woodchat shrike, a family of wild red legged partridge ,Algerian sand racer lizard (one of my favouritess) and best of all an enormous ,green, glistening ocellated lizard! I also saw a dark, low flying, falcon like bird that I concluded must have been a nightjar flushed by a tourist (there are signs warning about nightjars there so they are present).The beach had a decent tidal lagoon in which I was overjoyed to see my first great egret as well as yellow legged gulls and a pair of Kentish plover. I also saw a couple of terns at the beach but stupidly ignored them!

Kentish plover and great egret just behind the beach!

On the train journey home we passed a couple of good lagoons and saw a flock of greater flamingos, several hundred egrets including my first cattle egrets and 10+ marsh harriers!

In all it was a brilliant trip given that it wasn’t planned to do any birding in particular and my knowledge of birds was fairly limited and therefore I missed the chance to see species like snowfinch, zitting cistocola , basically any waders terns or pipits! However I did learn several new species that’d I’d never heard of before like citril finch! A very enjoyable trip with more than thirty lifers! In fact the only good birds that weren’t lifers were golden oriole, bee eater and golden eagle pretty much! I hope to return this summer! 

Thanks for reading if you actually finished all this👍