I managed to sleep in til 9.00, but awoke at 5 feeling
completely awake. I guess that confirms that my sleeping pattern is screwed.
However, I now had a full day ahead of me full of exploring and casual birding.
I decided to start with a little Seawatching as the
weather was not exceptional. However, the sea was completely flat, no waves at
all. I settled down to watch and see what would emerge. The highlight of my
hour’s shift were 21 Common Scoter, which flew by in flocks of 10 and 11. The
only other birds were the Gannets, but these were way out. It was a nice start
to the day though, and the weather picked up during my stay.
Next I moved to join the small group of birders that was
stationed near the seawatch hut. These were counting swifts and were made up of
locals and regulars. Initially it was very daunting being among so many birders
familiar with each other, but I got to speak to a couple as they started to
drift. There were good numbers of Swift even while I was there, but the total
for the day was already about 1000. The real buzz was regarding a certain
bridled tern that was slowly progressing down the coast, and many were
wondering if it would make it so far down to Spurn.
As the weather picked up, and I mean really picked up, I
decided to head over to the ponds near the warren to see if there were any
red-veined darters. The place was buzzing, with about 10 Black-Tailed Skimmers
and 2 Emperor Dragonflies strutting their stuff along the pond. Another birder
was also there looking, and we got chatting. He mentioned that there was
another pond where there may be some, in Churchfields. We stuck around the
warren pond though, and good thing too. I did find a darter, but I was unable
to approach it very easily so was restricted to long range views and photos.
However, it was very red, so I put it down as a Ruddy Darter and thought
nothing much more of it.
However we now jump ahead in the story. I returned for
lunch and filtered through my photos to see if there was anything funny about
said dragonfly and also a couple of other things. I zoomed into my best photo
and what do you know; Red Veins. However, the dragonfly lacked the blue eyes
and had black legs. It was almost like someone had taken red-veined darter
wings and stuck them onto a ruddy darter. Obviously the 2 ruddy features are
more subjective to light than the very obvious red veins, but I was reluctant
to call it.
That afternoon I spoke to Paul the warden and showed him
the picture. He too was not confident with it, but we decided it was obviously
an older insect as it had tatty wings. This supported the Red Veined school of
thought as ruddys had only just started to emerge. This and the fact that it
had a more red face (And Pauls opinion having seen them before) confirmed the
dragonfly as my first ever Red-Veined Darter.
-Red-Veined Darter
Unknowing this of course we continued to Chruchfields to
see if we could find any there. Apparently four had been in the Heligoland trap
the day before, but not today. We met Tim Jones there and he fished out 3 Ruddy
Darters from the trap. There were also a few very fresh Ruddy Darters on the
pond looking rather lovely. Add to that a couple of Emperors and Four Spot
Chaser. But the lack of Red Veins made me wonder if I was actually going to get
one. Tim said that they often get another influx, so it was likely more would
appear.
On my tour of
Spurn the next stop was the Canalside walk. Along there was supposed to be a
family of lesser whitethroat. Bob was already watching them, and said that he
could hear them. Apparently numerous people had been past claiming these birds
as Lessers. I heard the call and thought it was common whitethroat, but since
so many had apparently claimed them as Lessers I assumed I was wrong, not
knowing the call for a Lesser. As a result I claimed this as a great find for
the day. However, I got home and checked just for good measure and they were
indeed Common Whitethroat. The moral of the story kids is always trust your
instinct and just because someone tells you something does not make it right.
-Common Whitethroat
After lunch, having checked my photos, I decided to go to
the pond and try to re-find the dragonfly to get some more photos to clear up
my dilemma. It was around for about 5 mins, but the wind had picked up and it
was chased off by a Black-Tailed Skimmer, so no answers were found at this
point. I did grab some photos of the Black-Tailed Skimmers though, but they did
not come out very well.
-Black-Tailed Skimmer
I decided to walk back up Canalside, have a look at
Churchfields again and then come back down, doing ‘the triangle’. On the way up
Canalside I picked up Reed and Sedge Warbler, as well as Reed Bunting. I am
accumulating some great species for my trip here. However, it was another
dragonfly that stole the show as I found an Emperor Dragonfly eating a Bumble
bee of some description. Sadly it was not out in the open for a full body shot
but I got some great close ups of the jaws. I got close enough to hear it
crunching the bees carapace, but it was so loud that I did not have to be
excessively close.
-Emperor Dragonfly
Timing would have it that when I arrived at Churchfields
it was raining so there were no dragonflies to be found anywhere. I continued
along the road where there was an actual family of lesser whitethroats but did
not find them. I did find a Blue Tit though, which was a much needed addition
to my site list.
I headed back to the warren ponds but the wind had put
all the dragonflies down, so nothing was happening there unfortunately. As a
consequence I headed back to the Warren where I asked Paul about my dragonfly
and had it confirmed as a Red-Veined Darter, my first. I decided to do some
Seawatching but that did not last long, as after half an hour I had only
managed one distant Gannet.
However, my time there was livened up when Paul brought a
recently ringed Sand Martin juvenile to be released. It’s a different view of a
bird when it’s in the hand and it was a real privilege to be able to see this
young bird so close, and then watch it go on its journey south.
I wandered back to the warren to work on this and to make dinner. During dinner Tim walked in and told me about a young Cuckoo that had perched on a post near the warren. I came out and had a look and it was still there. It had just been rung, so that was probably why it was sticking around, that and the fact that there were good numbers of cinnabar moth caterpillars in the area. It was lovely to see, and very docile so I could approach it and grab some photos. In the evening light the brownish plumage really shone, one of the best views I have ever had of Cuckoo.
-Juvenile Cuckoo
Thats the end of this post, but I'm on nights tonight which will be a new experience for me, so I will update this post tomorrow should anything happen during the night.
Nothing much happened in the night, as it was quite dark when I got there. I did however stumble across some Turnstones along the beach as I made my way to the hut, which were a nice addition to my daylist
Species List:
Seawatch: Swallow,
Meadow Pipit, Gannet, Common Scoter, Sandwich Tern, Woodpigeon, Swift, Herring
Gull, Oystercatcher, Common Gull, Linnet, Grey
Seal, Meadow Brown, Large White,
Warren Ponds: Reed
Bunting, Meadow Pipit, Swift, Swallow, Sand Martin, Woodpigeon, Feral Pigeon,
Linnet, Skylark, Starling, Emperor
Dragonfly, Black-Tailed Skimmer, Common Darter, Red-Veined Darter, Common Blue
Damselfly, Common Blue-Tailed Damselfly, Common Emerald Damselfly, Meadow
Brown, Large White, Small Heath, Gatekeeper, Small Tortoiseshell, Red Admiral
Churchfields:
Sparrowhawk, Woodpigeon, Ruddy Darter,
Four-Spot Chaser, Emepror Dragonfly, Black-Tailed Skimmer, Meadow Brown,
Gatekeeper, Oak Eggar,
Canalside: Common
Whitethroat, Swallow, Linnet, Magpie, Lesser Black-Backed Gull, Mallard, Mute
Swan, Whimbrel, Reed Bunting, Reed Warbler, Sedge Warbler, Blue Tit, Emperor Dragonfly, Small Skipper, Small
White, Large White, 6-Spot Burnet Moth
Warren: Cuckoo, Woodpigeon, Meadow Pipit, Swallow, Swift, House Martin, Rabbit,
No comments:
Post a Comment