Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.........

........is the first line of "Ode to Autumn" by John Keats.
There's also a line that goes, "The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft".
For me, it is not the melancholy song of the Robin red breast that ushers in Autumn but rather the shrill overhead "whistle" of the Redwing, "Seez! Seez!" which simply says that our little Scandinavian chums have arrived.

By Thursday (16th October) I was getting impatient to see the first Redwing of the season. Plenty of Mistle Thrushes were gathering in the orchards but no sign of their smaller cousins.
But I had a feeling in my water and I was sure it wasn't just that pesky bladder infection again.
It turns out that Thursday wasn't a bad day at all.
Good company in the hide (Ay up Alan!) and a good selection of birds: great views of the Kingfisher (including a bit of a scrap when she chased off an intruder to her patch),  3 Jays, 2 Green Woodpeckers, a Kestrel, 7 Snipe (best number yet), and a Grey Heron.
Then slowly but surely they started to stream across the skies, with a few birds pausing to rest in the hedges and trees.
Oh yes, the Eagle has landed! Well, not literally of course..... but Redwings. Lots of lovely Redwings. The first of the season.
Autumn has arrived.

I returned to the hide on Saturday with my daughter, hopeful that we could get some photographs. A few Redwing were lurking in the distant trees but too far away for a good photograph.
A handful of Goldfinches flew close to the hide and feasted on the thistle patch:

That can't be comfortable

We had to wait a full half hour before this little beauty turned up:

Female Kingfisher

Other birds on the patch: 20 Mistle Thrushes, 2 Little Grebes, 3 jays, A Sparrowhawk, 2 Buzzards, 2 Mute Swan, 7 Moorhen, 5 Mallards, 6 Stock Dove and a single Meadow Pipit.

Anything About?

I promised my daughter I'd take her to see the kingfisher this weekend, so being the dutiful dad that I am I dragged her out of bed (at a "ridiculously early" hour - must of been at least 10:30!) and marched her, at gunpoint, down to the Orchard Centre hide.
"Right, you're in charge of the camera", I told her. Bit of a no-brainer really. She takes far better photographs than me.
Entering the hide we made enough noise to flush a small flock of Mallards and 4 Snipe before settling down in anticipation (photo from a visit last week).

A pre-flushed Snipe.

I have had a couple of brief glimpses of a Grey Wagtail over the last week or so but it's never settled for a photograph.
Until today:

Grey Wagtail

2 Grey Herons were on site, one close enough for a shot for which my young photographic assistant allowed me to use the camera:

Grey Heron

and then....
"Dad! Dad! It's here!".
Get some photos then, girl!

One thing is for sure. You could never get bored of seeing a Kingfisher. What a beauty.

There were a few other birds around today: 8 Teal (in flight), 5 Buzzards soaring together on the thermals, a Kestrel, a Common Sandpiper, 2 Jays, a handful of Meadow Pipits, 2 Pied Wagtail, a Mistle Thrush, 2 Mute Swans, 27 Stock Dove and 4 Robins.
There are still quite a few dragonfly around as well, mainly Migrant Hawkers and Common Darters.

Female Migrant Hawker

All in all - a jolly satisfactory morning, with some good shots (none of which are mine!) and a great experience to share with my daughter.

Shades of Grey

Now, I like to think of myself as enthusiastic and reasonably competent birder but I am by no means an expert. I struggle with identification at times - especially with some warblers and gulls. In fact, at times I have made a complete arse of myself.  I spent an hour once tracking a skulking bird through the scrub - convinced it was a Dartford Warbler, only to discover I had been wasting my energies following a ruffled and somewhat irritated Dunnock. I don't know who was more disappointed - him or me.
So, forgive me for what is about to come.
Yesterday at the Orchard Centre I lazily snapped off some photos of 3 Pied Wagtails perched on one of the fences. When I looked through the photos later it was clear that there was a marked difference in colour between the birds.

One was a particularly handsome defined black and white individual while the other two were quite grey and indistinct by comparison. Females? Young birds?
Then I got thinking..... speculating.....dreaming....fantasising...getting carried away (Dartford Warbler moment coming up). Could they be the alba (White Wagtail) birds that are often reported.
I've checked the books, trawled the Web. I'm still clueless. I'm really struggling to see the differences between female pied and white wagtails.
Best guess is the grey birds are female Pieds, but please correct me if I'm wrong.
All answers on a postcard to the Lone Birder, Hartpury Orchard Centre, Glos...........

All Hail the Fisher King

So, I'd caught elusive glimpses of the little fella on a couple of previous occasions but he was always too fast for a photograph.
Patience is a virtue though.
On the morning of the 5th October a Kingfisher flew past the hide, pausing momentarily to hover above the reed bed. I managed a shot. Not a great one but I was chuffed I got a photo at last:

First photo of the Kingfisher

I went away feeling reasonably pleased with myself but not quite satisfied with the shots I had got.
I returned to the hide late afternoon in the hope that the bird might return. It had clouded over however and the light was failing so if I was to get anything decent he better turn up soon.
As if on cue, I heard the unmistakable call of a Kingfisher and he alighted on ( a somewhat strategically placed) stick on the banks of the pond in front of the hide.
Bingo!
I got a little snap happy but these are the best of the bunch. Despite the poor lighting I'm actually reasonably satisfied!:

But of course, a photographer is never satisfied (or is that just me?).
I went back the following day as there was a bit of sunshine and I fancied the conditions were better if it came back again.
Once more I was treated to a marvelous display and the bird sat happily for plenty of photos.
It's interesting to note that the Kingfisher looks much greener in this session. This was probably the strong sunlight but I did wonder if it was a different bird. Young Kingfishers tend to be much greener in hue than the adults. On balance, it's likely to be the same bird - and a female too (red on the underside of beak) so I better stop calling it the "little fella":

Kingfisher with dragonfly larvae

I just found this - which kind of explains the colour variation: http://qi.com/infocloud/kingfishers

What a stunning bird though, eh?

Raptor Rapture

Well, October is getting off to a good start.
The 1st was a nice fine day. Glorious sunshine, no wind, lots of singing birds......... what more could the heart of man desire?
Not much happening around the hide (well, ok.... nice couple of Mute Swans) so I took a walk along the footpath leading to the fields behind Collier's Brook.

Mute Swan

A large flock of Meadow Pipits (35+) were lazily making their way up the hill only to be first bombarded by a Kestrel (who obviously decided these were a bit on the large side for dinner and moved on) and then by a Sparrowhawk.
I missed the Kestrel but got a couple of half decent shots of the Sparrowhawk:

Sparrowhawk

No sooner had the sparrowhawk moved on when a Buzzard made a low fly past, as if to say, "Never mind that pair of jokers, I'm King Raptor around these parts".  I didn't want to offend him so I took his photo too:

Buzzard

Well the thrill of all these airborne killers was getting too much for me. It's more excitement than a man of my age can stand for one day.
I made my way back along the footpath where 5 Chiffchaff had joined a group of 24 Long-tailed Tits to clear the hedgerow of bugs.
Not quite the same excitement of watching a hunting Sparrowhawk, but just take a look at the blood thirsty glint in this little chaps eye. It make your blood curdle..........

Long-tailed Tit

September Round Up

It's been a busy month.

Such a busy month that a chap can barely find time to update his blog.

So here's a photographic round up of some of this months highlights at Hartpury Orchard Centre:

First up, a Little Grebe. A patch first and No. 71 on the list:

Little Grebe

Next up..... Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a wasp?

No, it's a hornet. Just the one. Quite a handsome little "dude" though, as my daughter would say. With the exception of dragonflies I haven't been keeping an insect tally. Perhaps it's time to start?

Hornet

There were still good numbers of Chiffchaffs to be seen most days:

Chiffchaff

There are usually a couple of Great Spotted Woodpeckers on site and Green Woodpeckers have been feeding in the orchard grass most days:

Green Woodpecker

A nice Small Copper turned up on the 28th and there have been good numbers of dragonflies and damselflies all month:

Small Copper

Common Hawker

So, I'm beginning to think that, with a fair wind, October could turn out to be a very good month indeed.

It's like buses........

.....you wait all day for one and then 2 come along at once!
Or in this case - you wait all year.
So on Sunday morning I had to make a visit to the tip. Whoops, sorry.... Recyling Centre. I really must learn to stop calling it that. Anyway, on the way back I thought, "Well me binoculars are in the car, it would be rude not to pop into the Orchard Centre for 5 minutes and see if there's anything about".
So I swung by, parked up and scuttled down to the hide as fast as my little legs would carry me. No sooner had I sat down when a flash of blue shot by. Would you Adam and Eve it! (I'm not a cockney but I'm given to regionally accented outbursts from time to time, A Kingfisher! A bloody Kingfisher! Two years I've waited to see one here. And what does the little blighter do? He alights on a bulrush in good view of the hide and I swear to god I could hear him laughing. Okay, it was the voices in my head again..... "Shame you forgot your camera Steve. Ha ha ha.". Go on, rub it in.

Nevertheless, number 69 is in the bag!

I figured all was not lost and decided to head off home to collect the camera. Surely the little fella would make another appearance. I coaxed my curious, though somewhat unenthusiastic, teenage daughter to accompany me. In truth, she's a much better photographer than me so I put her in charge of "the kit" to leave me free to find the bird.

Alas, 'twas not to be. An hour of fruitless searching and lolling around in a draughty hide produced nothing. It looked as though our little blue chum had moved along. Drat.

Once again there was a large flock of Goldfinches feeding on the thistles around the hide. My daughter snapped off a few shots and then pointed out an LBJ ("Little Brown Job" to the uninitiated) perched on the top of a hedge, partially obscured by the swirling cloud of finches. 

With binoculars sharply focused, I was able to excitedly announce that it was a Whinchat. I think I must have repeated  that about 10 times to my (still) somewhat unenthusiastic daughter. " I'll take some photos shall I dad?" Oh yeah, right. I knew you were here for a good reason. Left to me I would have missed the moment.

A Whinchat. That's quite a big deal for my little patch. Oh, and let's not forget, it's also number 70. 

Whinchat

Whinchat and Goldfinch

Goldfinches in flight