Wanstead Birder: May 2018

Thursday, 31 May 2018

Rose-coloured Starling influx

I am still searching for my 150th species in Wanstead. Trouble is, I think I am searching in the wrong place. Is Poland in Wanstead? What about Romania? Bulgaria? No absurd Brexit comments please. Still, although London patch birding is guaranteed to surprise, and something very very common elsewhere could become my milestone, for instance a wader of some sort of which the UK has thousands, it could equally be a rarity or scarcity. London has a huge list of birds, and whilst Wanstead lacks the habitat that might pull many of these in, the list of what has been seen here over the last few years speaks for itself. Great Grey Shrike, Ortolan Bunting. Blyth's Reed Warbler. Wryneck. Three more Wrynecks. Lapland Bunting. Slavonian Grebe. Most of those would have birders moving pretty quickly no matter where they lived.

I've just returned from a trip to Bulgaria. Whilst there, the biggest flocks of birds that I saw were not waders or gulls. They were Rose-coloured Starlings. Thousands of them, in flocks hundreds strong. They are not breeding birds there per a local birder we spoke to, but they have just arrived in huge numbers. The story is seemingly encountered across Europe, including in the UK, albeit that the further west you go the flocks diminish in size. I saw a tweet from somewhere celebrating a flock of nine birds as being the biggest wherever it was had ever seen! All I can say is when you have seen 300 birds leave a moderately-sized cherry tree in one synchronised movement then a flock of nine will leave you underwhelmed. I would not twitch one here, but I would definitely be up for finding a flock. In Wanstead a satisfying flock number would be, umm, one. Yes that would do, a lone bird in amongst our regular Starling population would suit me just fine. They have already reached our shores, and local birders are out looking. I intend to join them as soon as I can. It may liven up June. Or it could be the most boring June we have ever had.

A morning birding Barbados

Although I am billing this as a trip report in fact it was a morning birding the island that I managed to slip in during a short trip away with one of my kids. We were there for snorkeling primarily, but it just so happened that my sister and her kids were on holiday there too, a complete coincidence, so I managed to negotiate a play date with cousins and went off for a few hours. As such I am dispensing with the usual logistics and itinerary, and just going for a glorified trip list. I did engage a guide (as I frequently do where birding is a side-show) but in truth I am not sure I got great value from this. My guide came away with two island ticks which probably tells you all you need to know - there is no delicate way to say this - he was simply not impressive, and professional bird guides need to be impressive. First off he did not have a telescope, so we could not identify anything distant such as small waders. Secondly he was not remotely up to date with island birding. That said I was very much in a Caribbean frame of mind, relaxed and happy as opposed to nervous and twitchy, and my guide was very personable and similarly relaxed, so I had a fun morning. He also had a car and he did know the sites, so I guess that without him my ability to find and get to the sites that held the key birds would have been limited, at least not without a ton of research that I did not have time to do.

Barbados does not have many birds, and the single endemic – the Barbados Finch – is completely ubiquitous and will be seen almost everywhere. The Barbados Golden Warbler (Dendroica petechia ssp petechia) is an endangered and endemic subspecies of the very complicated Yellow Warbler complex so that was worth seeing, but apart from that there is nothing on the island that you won’t be able to see somewhere else. In other words don’t bother go to Barbados for a birding holiday, unless it is half a day as part of a wider Caribbean trip. Do go to Barbados if you want to meet friendly people, eat great food, and have a very chilled out holiday. Here is a quick run-down of the sites I went to.

Barbados Bullfinch. I took this at a hotel cocktail party.

Oistins

A small number of Royal Terns were present on the Jetty here with some Laughing Gull.

Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary, Bridgetown

This is closed to the public and has been for several years – the owner is in dispute with the Barbados Government over their lack of action in preventing external factors from damaging the mangrove habitat. You can view into it along the sluice that used to feed the swamp, and it was here that I got the Golden Warbler in the trees. Solitary Sandpiper was here too, along with Caribbean Elaenia, Caribbean Martin, Antillean Crested Hummingbird and Black-faced Grassquit.

Chancery Lane Swamp

Viewed this wetland area from the residential streets at the NW corner, but as neither my guide nor I had a scope it was hard work. Lesser Yellowlegs, Snowy Egret and Great White Egret were obvious, as was the vagrant American Flamingo that had, unbeknownst to my guide, been on the island for about six months. Barbados needs a birding Whatsapp group. Semipalmated Plover, Least Sandpiper and Semipalmated Sandpiper also present in decent numbers but without a scope the views were rubbish.

Inch Marlowe
A rocky shoreline east of Bridgetown was unfortunately quite sparse in bird life at the time of my visit, but I expect that in different weather you might get fly-by Terns and Frigatebirds. There were no waders on the beach.

Woodbourne Refuge

A series of small ponds near the village of that are extremely rich in bird life. The first bird I set eyes on was a Spoonbill. My guide couldn’t believe it, Roseate Spoonbill would have only been his second! I had concerns though, mainly about how white it was, how not pink it was, and somewhat telltale black in the wings. Frankly it was suspiciously like a Eurasian Spoonbill, which was very confusing indeed. An escape perhaps? But who keeps Spoonbills? We carried on birding, great views of Least Sandpiper and Pectoral Sandpiper here.

Bayfield Pond

This is basically a village duck pond, but I actually got another tick here, Masked Duck, a bird I had been hoping to see and that I had missed elsewhere on other trips to the region. They were incredibly hard to see on even a small pond, and it took another bird guide turning up to show us exactly where. Very smart little things, I know it is bad to anthropomorphise but they looked very cheeky. The other guide also confirmed that there was a Eurasian Spoonbill knocking about and that it was a genuine vagrant that had been on the island. I still think I can legitimately claim this as a find as I knew none of this. - apparently this is not the first either, with a record in 2008 of two birds. Anyway, the important thing is that my guide got another tick…Plenty of Green Heron in breeding plumage here too, and lots of Common Gallinules.

Westmoreland Resort

The lake near the main road had a large flock of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks as well as two Fulvous Whistling Duck.

Trip List

1. Barbados Finch
2. Scaly-naped Pigeon
3. Zainada Dove
4. Carib Grackle
5. Antillean Crested Hummingbird
6. Green-throated Carib
7. Green Heron
8. Cattle Egret
9. Magnificent Frigatebird
10. Laughing Gull
11. Grey Kingbird
12. Bananaquit
13. Royal Tern
14. Collared Dove
15. Common Gallinule
16. Ground Dove
17. Caribbean Martin
18. Greater Flamingo
19. Eurasian Spoonbilll
20. Masked Duck
21. Great White Egret
22. Snowy Egret
23. Black-faced Grassquit
24. Caribbean Elaenia
25. Yellow Warbler
26. Black-bellied Whistling Duck
27. Fulvous Whistling Duck
28. Turnstone
29. Spotted Sandpiper
30. Solitary Sandpiper
31. Greater Yellowlegs
32. Lesser Yellowlegs
33. Least Sandpiper
34. Semipalmated Sandpiper
35. Semipalmated Plover
36. Grey Plover
37. Shiny Cowbird
38. Pigeon

Tuesday, 22 May 2018

Eastern Poland Trip Report: Bialowieza Forest

Wanstead goes on tour! None of us are quite sure how this happened but at some point on a slow birding day on Wanstead Flats we must have started discussing where might be better than here. Almost everywhere! We eventually decided on Poland’s Bialowieza (Bee-yah-woe-vyay-zha) forest – a number of us needed Owls and Woodpeckers, and it was readily doable over a long weekend.

Logistics

Early Friday to late Sunday in mid-May gave us two half days and one full day birding.
Flights from London to Warsaw were about £107 each with British Airways. At the time of booking they were cheaper than any alternatives and the flight times were perfect.
We tried to hire a minibus as there were six of us but there were none available so we got two cars and drove in convoy. Well, attempted to at any rate. Per car this came to about £80 rental + £45 fuel for the three days. We drove 760km.
Accommodation at the Ostoja Pasibrzuch was shall we say rustic, but a bargain at £12.50 per night per person in twin cells. Sorry, rooms. We didn’t use the pool as it had a dead cat in it. Breakfast however was excellent at about £5.
Whilst we were not on a tour, we did contact and book a guide for the Saturday - Arek Szymura. If you want Owls and Woodpeckers you need a guide. In the event his son Mateusz took us round – from 4am to 10pm! €50 per person, which whilst sounds steep is an incredible hourly rate. He knew his stuff and was quite a funny guy, and he also did not let up the pace all day. In addition he gave us good gen for our last morning in the forest. In deference to his livelihood I won't detail the exact locations of his stakeouts.
We ate two meals at a restaurant in town. The food was cheap and good but the staff need to work on pretending they are pleased to see customers.

Itinerary

Day 1: 4am wake-up call for a 7.35am flight from Heathrow which arrived at Warsaw at 11am., We were on the road by midday and drove 3 hours up to Biebzra marshes for Aquatic Warbler. It was then a further 2 hours to Bialowieza.
Day 2: 3.30am start call to meet Mateusz. Massive day spent in the Bialowieza forest visiting various staked-out breeding sites, with the evening spent in the upper Nawew valley at a Great Snipe lek.
Day 3: All morning spent birding around the forest at a number of sites suggested by Mateusz, and then a cross-country drive back to Warsaw, birding all the way, for a flight at 6.30pm back to London. We attempted to spend time in a Warsaw park for Syrian Woodpecker but spent but unfortunately there was an event on and it was too busy.

Day 1
We left London at 7.35am and arrived in Warsaw at 11am. With hand luggage only we collected the cars very quickly and were on the road by 11.45. In car 1 (callsign: Red Khajar) were me, Bob and James. In car 2 (callsign: Black Pecker) were Tony, Dave and Richard. Naturally our plan to drive in convoy failed spectacularly at the first major junction, and the carefully planned two-way radio back up plan also failed when Red Khajar went out of range almost immediately. From then on we kept in touch via Whatsapp and eventually met up again at the Dluga Luka boardwalk about three hours later. It is fair to say that Black Pecker was navigationally challenged at many points during the trip, notably (and repeatedly) in the very small village of Bialowieza, but we all got back home again.

The roads were awful, the E67 seems to be undergoing a lengthy period of reconstruction and we kept on getting diverted off it, so the journey took 3.5 hours – rather longer than hoped for. Once we reached the Biezbra Marshes it was clear that the birding was excellent, but with news that somehow Black Pecker had overtaken us we did not linger and carried on to the famous boardwalk at Dluga Luka. We saw our first Elk just before we got here, a huge animal in a small cleared field. Oddly there was no sign of the other car at the boardwalk, no doubt a sat-nav glitch…. We walked west down the short boardwalk through a lush wet meadow interspersed with small stands of reeds, narrowly beating a tour group in a coach to the viewing platform at the end. Here we started hearing Aquatic Warbler almost immediately but in breezy and overcast conditions they were keeping low. A Whinchat kept our interest, as did flyover Honey Buzzard and a Lesser Spotted Eagle. We managed a few display flight views of the Warblers, but it wasn’t until the sun came out and we were alone again that we started to get decent views. We had agreed at our planning session that we only needed one scope with us and Dave had been assigned scope-wallah duties, so he lined the bird up and we all had excellent views of two singing birds. Much better than we had dared to hope actually, and for all of us other than Bob and Richard this was a lifer. It was going well. Then I tripped on the boardwalk and trashed my 1.4x converter…

Target #1, Aquatic Warbler

Before leaving for Bialowieza we checked out a nearby marsh tern colony we had seen on the way. This was excellent, with probably up to 100 pristine White-winged Black Terns, a handful of Whiskered Terns and a solitary Black Tern. We all agreed these were probably the best views we had ever had of the former. Supporting cast here was Cuckoo (present in huge numbers everywhere we went), Lesser Whitethroat and Sedge Warbler. Then it was two hour drive south east to the forest during which we managed to stay together and which passed without incident. Dinner and one too many beers were had at the Pokusa Restaurant, and the vodka shots ordered by Tony were completely incompatible with a 4am start.

WWBT

Whiskered Tern

Day 2

My alarm went off at 3.30am. Ouch. After a 4am start the previous day this was very hard indeed! Mateusz was waiting in the car park and the five keen birders that had managed to wake up all introduced themselves. Tony shambled up a few minutes later blaming an ill-advised chaser and time zone issues, and then we were on our way! The weather was not very nice, light rain and very overcast, but it was what it was and we all had waterproofs for this eventuality. We did not go far, only to the meadow between the town and the Strict Reserve. European Bison! A male, albeit not quite fully grown, was feeding in the lush grass close to the forest edge. The scope was pressed into service again and we enjoyed some nice views of this enormous European mammal.

Our next stop was the territory of a White-backed Woodpecker, one of the top targets for the group. It was a fair walk down a forest track followed by a taking a narrow trail to a very boggy area. The bird took a while to show so the resident mosquito population enjoyed an unprecedented feast. Finally it appeared, albeit briefly, but we all saw it pretty well as it came to what was probably a nest tree. With this under our belts we did not hurry back, and instead enjoyed our first views of Red-breasted Flycatcher, a stunning male, as well as Wood Warblers (abundant) and Collared Flycatchers.

Flush with this success we visited a site near Budy for a known Middle Spotted Woodpecker nest. This was a lot more straightforward and we had excellent views of both adults as they came to and from the nest. We also heard Black Woodpecker here but despite it being quite close we were not able to track it down.

Middle Spotted Woodpecker

We had a short break for breakfast before meeting a new guide, Dorotha, at the Bialowieza Strict Reserve. Not quite sure what the deal was here, but Mateusz was double-booked and taking a large group around the same place about 15 minutes ahead of us. A bit off really but it did not make a huge amount of difference in the long run, and we saw Lesser Spotted Woodpecker which his new group didn’t. Win. At the huge entrance gate we were entranced by amazing views of a Black Woodpecker hammering huge chunks of a rotting tree to smitherenens. The ground below had mounds of wood shards, and these were easily the best views I had ever had of this brilliant species. Dorotha was a field scientist with a special interest in Collared Flycatchers so it was appropriate that we also got stunning views of this very numerous species, as well as a lot of good general information about the reserve and its ecology. Middle Spotted Woodpecker and another Black Woodpecker were seen on our long walk round.

The entrance to the Strict Reserve - the tree favoured by the Black Woodpecker was just to the left of the gate, but it may be a stump by now!

Black Pecker. Probably lost.

Collared Flycatcher

We were passed back to Mateusz again at the entrance and then visited his Grey-headed Woodpecker site in the Palace Gardens. The bird was unfortunately not present which didn't surprise me at all. I'd previously dipped it in Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and Greece, so why not add Poland to the list. To console us we travelled to a Pygmy Owl stakeout and scored instantly, Mateusz ran a stick up the trunk to mimic a Pine Marten, and the bird reacted by poking its head out to see what was going on. With our scope lined up and ready we all got nice views of this diminutive and tricky bird.

Pgymy Owl

It didn’t stop there though! We were soon at a new site near Czerlonka looking for Three-toed Woodpecker, another elusive and much-wanted species for most of the group. Mateusz did not know the actual site, more the general area, but by extreme good fortune and a sharp-eyed Bob bringing up the rear we managed to find the exact tree. Had we been but a few metres further on (or had Bob kept up!) we would have missed it. As it was our guide now has the site and is a very happy man. We retreated to give the bird space and enjoyed wonderful views as it came into the nest tree.

Three-toed Woodpecker. This would have been a lot better with a 1.4x converter.

We were flagging but Mateusz was indefatigable, and we embarked on another huge walk to try and track down Nutcracker and Tengmalm’s Owl. To cut a long story short we found neither. 2018 is not a good year for owls and although the Tengmalm’s had been seen earlier in the season displaying at this site it was not present. Rather disappointing to have walked so far for no reward but nothing is ever guaranteed. James actually fell asleep walking back to the car.

Before we broke for dinner and well-earned rest we stopped off for a Red-breasted Flycatcher and were treated to close range views of a fabulous male. I’ve seen quite a few in the UK but none have been this good. Back at Bialowieza we returned to the Grey-headed Woodpecker nest and this time the bird was at home! Mateusz whistled it out and it had a quick look around and then flew strongly across the meadow. Finally!

Red-breasted Flycatcher

At this point (5pm) we were allowed a brief rest, only fair after 13 hours of birding and about 12 miles. But we were not done yet! We quickly dipped Wryneck near the guide’s house before returning to the Gulag for power naps and a quick bite to eat. Then we picked Mateusz up again and hit the road to the Narew valley, about 40km distant. How I drove there and back I have no idea, but we made it and all is well. The Upper Narew Valley is well known Great Snipe lek that has received some decent funding to create the ideal habitat.

Great Snipe only start to display after sundown and we timed our arrival perfectly. Corncrake were calling everywhere and when they are close they are incredibly loud. Despite thinking we might see one we never did, but it seemed to be at our feet at times! At the area known for lekking we stayed quiet to try and hear the characteristic bill-clacking. Mateusz pointed out a slightly higher area of ground used for the displays, but the actual bird was was spotted by Dave somewhere completely different. In fact it was far far closer and yet again having a scope provided the most sublime views despite the low light. I’ve seen a vagrant Great Snipe at Spurn but it was basically just expiring in a field so this felt a lot better. Supporting cast here included churring Nightjar, Thrush Nightingale, Woodcock and Gropper. On the way back we stopped at an open area between Bialowieza and Pogorzelca and were treated to a River Warbler belting it out continuously near the tower hide - it must take crazy amounts of energy - the whole bird shakes constantly.

Great Snipe - I have lightened this image significantly.

Day 3
A lie in! 6am start! We set off in search of Hazel Grouse at the catchily-named Zebra Zubra trail. This is an extremely long boardwalk with no Hazel Grouse anywhere near it. Or at least not when we were there. Apparently April is a lot better as by May they are well into raising young. Plenty of Wood Warbler, a Firecrest and our first team Goldcrest. Pleasant though the forest undoubtedly was we felt this to be a fairly poor return for our time. We did hear a Wolf howling distantly here though (James assured us it could not have been a dog.)

River Warbler

Icterine Warbler

Rather disappointed with our nil return, we returned to the River Warbler site from the previous evening and found it singing from halfway up a tree which was a bit surprising. The interminable boardwalk was soon forgotten. An Icterine Warbler was singing from the same tree, a Black Woodpecker was in the next tree along, Rosefinch was in an adjacent bush, a pair of Red-backed Shrike were in a clump, Great Reed Warbler was in the ditch and a Savi's Warbler was in the opposite reed bed. Eastern Poland is simply superb - birding as it should be. If you have never been you need to go, it is mind-blowing.

Zebra Zubra trail

We returned to the village and to the Palace Gardens to try and help Richard tick Thrush Nightingale. Tree Sparrows a-plenty, Red-backed Shrikes and Great Reed Warblers by the ponds but no joy. Hawfinches and another River Warbler close by, along with yet more Rosefinches and our first Sand Martin overhead. The place is teeming with birds.

After another excellent breakfast we had one last look around the village, this time picking up a pair of Barred Warbler, but as it was now late morning we needed to head towards Warsaw. This was billed as a 4 hour drive, and being birders we knew it would take longer than that as we would be stopping and looking. We took the southern route via Kleszczele, Sokolow Podlaski and Grebkow, which although slightly longer was said to be more picturesque by Mateusz. It was indeed extremely nice, and along the way we added Pheasant, Corn Bunting, LRP, Serin, Wheatear and two more Montagu's Harrier to our trip list. A special moment was enjoyed by all as Richard finally ticked Thrush Nightingale after a minor breakdown. Cool, calm and collected are not words that would apply. Hopefully one of the guys has a video...

A planned attempt at Syrian Woodpecker in a Warsaw park was thwarted by some kind of triathalon event, so we ended up being very early at the airport for our flight back to London. The collective trip list was 108, and we were all pleased to see that a week long trip with one of the major tour operators cost a grand and only got 160. We spent a quarter of that and saw most of what we wanted to see - Tengmalm's was probably the biggest miss but having seen one in Finland I was pretty chilled on that front. So all in all a fantastic short break - very tiring but extremely satisfying to have spent a weekend enjoying top quality birding in great company.

White Stork

Tree Sparrow

Trip List

Italics = heard only
Birds seen by others - Great Grey Shrike, Tree Pipit
Mammals: Rabbit, Hare, Red Squirrel, Fox, Elk, Red Deer, Roe Deer, European Bison and we heard a Wolf!

Wednesday, 16 May 2018

In praise of Hummingbirds

Lesser Violetear. No, I don't know either.

Well I’ve finally just finished consolidating my Costa Rica trip report along with the monumentally huge list. I estimate that the whole thing took me about 45 hours to write. About three to four hours per blog post, depending on the length and the number of photos, three hours for the list, and then about six hours of putting it all together for the final document which I have now loaded up to Cloudbirders. That is some effort, but one I am pleased to be able to do as I rely so heavily on existing trip reports when planning my own adventures. Many of the reports on there are essentially adverts placed there by birding tour companies (and they are very useful for planning), but there are loads written by people just like me. Solo travellers or small groups going it alone. Long may that tradition continue, in my opinion writing detailed birding trip reports is one of the most community-spirited things you can do. I used to just do it in blog form (you can see the posts organised by trip here), but for some of the more exciting trips I have been on lately I’ve scraped the text from each post, subtly rewritten sections of it, added the photos again and saved it as a complete document. Costa Rica is by far and away the longest I have done, and at 69 pages is not really a “handy” size, but in my defence there are a huge number of photos – I had not realised quite how many I had taken. Many of them are absolute garbage, taken in low light through multiple twigs etc, and with dreadful backgrounds. They serve their purpose.

I am far happier with my Hummingbird photos. Largely these are as a result of dedicated sessions – albeit short sessions and generally at lunchtimes – at bird feeders. Some however were “in the field” – wherever there were stands of Porterweed (Stachytarpheta jamaicensis) there were Hummingbirds, and during ten minutes here and ten minutes there I was able to get a few lucky flight shots.

We saw 37 species of Hummingbirds and it could have been more. It was only when I got back and was going through the process of identifying them all over again from my photographs that I realised I’d actually photographed many of them, in some cases quite successfully. It’s worth looking at the Hummingbird section of the list.

Amazing n’est ce pas? What I find fascinating, beautiful and romantic even, are the names. So evocative. Gems and stars. Fairies and nymphs. Emeralds and goldentails. Scintillants, brilliants and magnificents. Whoever came up with these names should be applauded, they are perfect and they seem to say exactly what your brain is thinking as they dart past. They are brilliant, they are magnificent, they are like sparkling gems as the light catches them at just the right angle and their hidden iridescence beams out. My photos don't so them justice, neither do far better ones, no still image really could. They are masters in their element, controlled and precise perfection. Dare I say it, they might be better than Chats.... Blue and green explosions of life. Glittering, effervescent, shining little sprites that were just magical to watch and extremely challenging to follow. And for the most part absolutely tiny, but with immense character and attitude. The complaints, arguments and fights were prolonged and fierce. Buzzing warfare. Somehow I managed to capture 17 of them, under half, but I'm actually surprised it is that many. Trying to predict where a bird that can, at will, travel in any direction is almost impossible. Sometimes, usually just before landing at a feeder, there would be a slight pause, and this was a tactic I used to try and get them in flight. Mostly I just burned my shutter for no good reason, occasionally I got lucky. I would go back tomorrow simply to photograph Hummingbirds - I have seen what is possible on the internet and that's what I want. With time on my side, patience and several flashguns I reckon I would do better. Do I have a favourite? I don't think I do - the simple idea of a Hummingbird is enough for me. Anyway, here they are.