The Agony & the Ecstasy & the Agony & the Ecstasy etc...

Ecstasy

Mrs. Prof had decided to chuck out some tut, I mean cherished possessions. (She probably won’t read this but you can’t be too careful) Normally this is something for which I would be eternally grateful, however…

Agony

…this entails me having to take a trip to the local waste recycling amenity, for which read Leyton tip (Jamie, stop dribbling now!). In my book this comes under the category of D.I.Y, regular readers will know this is not my favourite pastime, nevertheless I decided that I could include it with a brief visit to the patch…

Agony/Ecstacy?

I quickly checked the local Twitter feed, London Wiki and RBA app only to realise that the patch mine had been well and truly worked dry this morning (well done chaps), except for one small bit, the Waterworks NR (unknown at the time it seems Sue had also busted that flush too)…

Jamie's best shot, Long-tailed Tit & Buzzard

Agony

I realised why I don’t generally visit the Waterworks on a weekend when the highest species count for the site was Humans, over 40 in my short visit. This was followed by not quite 40 House Martins, many Chiffchaffs, quite a few Blackcaps and 2 Whitethroats, I still had a while before I had to get back to cook dinner (It’s hard being the perfect husband but I try, at least Mrs. Prof says I am very trying, I assume that’s the same thing) so despite/because of reports of Stonechats and Yellow Wagtails on Walthamstow marsh I thought I’d wander over the road and have a look.

Sue did her bit too

(More) Agony

Needless to say the bomb crater field lacked Chats of any description, despite Stuart’s earlier Stones and Quentin’s subsequent Whin. The back paddocks were equally bereft of Wagtails, though 40+ Linnets was good. A lone Peregrine sat on one of the pylons to the North and a strangely large Egret tantalised for a while as it flew towards the reservoirs, it’s really odd how all of us keep seeing what on initial views looks like a Great White Egret, it’s not like we don’t see enough Little Egrets. This one did the decent thing though, allowing me to get a scope on it and see what it really was, just a large Little, when we do get a real Great White it is going to be blindingly obvious.

Ecstasy

At this point the, hitherto grey sky, parted to reveal a large patch of blue and a bit of warmth, enough to make me think Raptors! I did a scan of the sky and suddenly, there they were, no, not Raptors, Spoonbills! 3 birds lazily circling, quite high but unmistakeable, long-legged, straight necked and with a dirty great big bit of cutlery stuck on their faces.

Agony

Panic ensued, who do I phone? Tweet, put the birds out on RBA, try for a photo, hold on I’ve lost them, more panic! Ah, found them again, right start again, d’oh! Lost again. They seemed to be drifting, thermalling, heading towards Woodberry, better get a message to them, no they’re going South-west, now they are into the sun, run around the other side of a bush for a better view. Gone.

Ecstasy

Realisation that they are new for the patch for the year #141, only 5 short of our average and with 3.5 months to go. Better still #130 for me for the year, equalling my previous best, with 3.5 months of the year. They were circling for about 7 minutes but I kept losing them every time I made a call, tweeted, texted or tried to line up a shot, very frustrating. In fact I couldn’t really say what age they were, but quite possibly some/all had black in the wing tips but their height, and the fact I kept losing sight of them, really was against me.

Agony

Realisation that I didn’t actually need it for the patch, having seen one that spent half a day on the island of East Warwick on the 10^th June 2006, a multi-rung Dutch bird. (The last patch record, allegedly, was in 2013, from an erstwhile patch-watcher who submitted no records, and saw a bird which apparently flew over another birder also on site at the same time. I have no comment) Also that I could probably have seen them from the house, with a great deal of good fortune. Feeling bad, knowing that realistically no other local birder was going to see them, goodness knows they were hard enough to see when you knew roughly where they were!

The 2006 bird, imagine three of these really high up and you'll be where I was about 16:00

Ecstasy

I’ve just seen 3 Spoonbills over the patch, nuff said.

@birdingprof

Like it or Knot

A warm and muggy morning, and I continued my run of early (well early for me) starts on the patch which I have to say I'm quite enjoying! Met Prof W at 7.30, and Jamie P was of course already up there before work. Today it was well worth it, as no sooner had we got up the bank on Lockwood than PW spotted another juvenile Arctic Tern flying daintily around the NW section of the res. This was particularly good news as I'd missed one yesterday that JP had had just before my arrival, but which disappeared very soon after, as did today's bird.

Soon after Jamie spotted a grey & white-looking wader flying North up the flood relief channel. It was quite bulky-looking with relatively slow wing beats. PW got onto it before me and quickly identified it as a Knot - a patch first for myself and Jamie no less - good work lads! It appeared to come down over the Banbury res, and might be the juv bird JP & I saw on KGV res a few days earlier. My only minor gripe is that I didn't get it in the 'scope so views were distant...still, who knows it might yet reappear in the days to come.

After JP had gone his merry way, PW did well to find a pair of Greenshank lurking at the back of the relief channel, and superbly camouflaged in the surrounding muck and algae.  Oddly, one of the birds appeared to be hopping around on one leg, so may well be injured. I honestly think it would've been nigh on impossible to find them with bins alone, and indeed we may well have overlooked them yesterday when they'd been reported by another observer.. That's now 4 Greenshank I've had on the patch this year which is a record for me. The only other birds of note here were a flyover Yellow Wagtail, 5 Common Sandpipers, 4 Wheatears and a couple of Swifts.

With temps warming up nicely, we hauled ourselves around the South side, firstly East Warwick - where a single Wigeon was the highlight, and first of the year for both of us - then around 5 and 4 where there was little of note other than our 2 regular Peregrines sitting on adjacent pylons. Surprisingly, not a single hirundine seen today, but a very worthwhile visit to the patch.

Today's 2 distant, camouflaged Greenshank in the flood relief channel (top) and a not-so-spectacular Wigeon on the East Warwick (pics courtesy @birdingprof)

@LolBodini

Final piece of the jigsaw

Hobby has been hard to catch up with this year on the reservoirs, perhaps because we don't have a local breeding pair this summer on the surrounding marshes. But after a slow walk up Lockwood, I finally saw the last of my missing summer regulars when I got a quick glimpse of one coming down the overflow channel from Banbury before it disappeared behind the trees. Lol (who also had not had one this year), Jamie and I saw presumably the same bird later flying across No 4 carrying a recently snaffled bird. It then circled over the playing fields and seemed to be plucking or even eating its prey in flight - which, according to BWP, they can do with birds as well as dragonflies.

It was hardly a surprise that it first came from the direction of Banbury as there were still plenty of martins feeding overhead with around 20 late Swifts. Other migrants included three Wheatears on the side of Lockwood while at least two Spotted Flycatchers remained in the pylon bushes. They came out into the open more today so even I could get a recognisable picture even if not quite up to Jamie or Phil's efforts @owlturbot from yesterday. But then they can't fit their camera in their pocket....

There are still a few warblers around with perhaps four Willow Warblers seen, two Whitethroats and a Lesser Whitethroat. Common Terns on Lockwood were down to four with two juveniles - perhaps the twins off the raft on Lockwood with their parents. I wonder if they were still be there next weekend.

 Sadly, there seems to be some inverse relationship between the excellence of the habitat on Lockwood and the number of waders, Despite a wide beach round the entire reservoir all we saw were around five Common Sandpipers - less than we would expect if it was all concrete.

                                          A beach waiting for a wader...any wader

DB @porthkillier 

Spottys stuck around.

We struggle for good autumn migrants on the patch. Wanstead seems to pull in all the Redstarts and Pied Flys.  So when David Paul and Lol found a Spotted Flycatcher in the sheltered area along the central path, I made sure I paid it a visit the following day. Surprisingly it was still there and joined by two others. Rarely sitting out in the open the birds stayed within cover for most of the time I watched them. 

David had seen a Wheatear on the Lockwood and a few common warblers, as well as five or so Swift feeding over Banbury.  A group of mostly juvenile Gulls on the causeway between number four and five reservoirs held a nice Yellow-Legged and Great Black-backed, both juveniles. The Yellow Leg stayed out of camera range and is the third juvenile I've seen this year.

Juvenile Great-Black back

Goldcrests seem to have bred on in or near the pub carpark this bird and several juveniles were in a tit flock nearby the other day.  @jarpartridge

Spotted finally spotted

September is generally the best month for autumn migration on the reservoirs which explains why four of us were walking around Lockwood at 7 am. The water levels in the reservoir are unusually low leaving a very good wader edge right around so it was a little disappointing that all we had were six or so Common Sandpipers and a nice Green Sandpiper which dropped in briefly from its usual haunt on the overflow channel. There was not much sign of any other migration either. Two Wheatears fed on the bank, we heard a Yellow Wagtail seemingly heading north while 30 Swifts with a few martins still fed over Banbury. But warblers were scarce, managing, I think, only singles of Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Blackcap and Willow Warbler between us along the Lea.

Crossing over the road, we had Common Sandpipers on East Warwick and No 5 before I persuaded the Prof and Lol to join my Captain Ahab-style quest to see a Spotted Flycatcher on the reservoirs this year by walking up the central path. We did find a couple more Willow Warblers but it was only when we stood chatting to an angler at the central pylon bushes and I saw movement over his head deep in a hawthorn bush that the diversion paid off. To my surprise, it was not the warbler I expected but our target. It did pose more typically like a Spotted Flycatcher out in the open occasionally but seemed happier for some reason catching insects deeper within the bushes where there were also a couple of Willow Warblers, Blackcaps and a Reed Warbler. It was in the same area - and only two days later - than my first last year and should, if history be any guide, be followed by more. It was a new patch bird for the year for all of us and took my reservoir list to 110 - three more than 2015.  

DB @porthkillier