19th February. Yellowthroat and a Knackered Battery

In 1997 I snubbed the Scillies Yellowthroat - simply because earlier in the year I had been to Ontario (Point Pelee etc.) and seen hundreds to the point where I was quite bored of them. When news broke on Thursday of one near Newport, Gwent the feeling that came over me was reminiscent of that of October 1997. However by Saturday night I had come to my senses and stopped being daft.

Sunday morning and 180 or so miles later we were faced with this vision of lemony loveliness - the likes that I had not seen (in Britain) since the Yellow-throated Vireo at Kenidjack in 1990 (I thought I'd throw that in for you smug lot that keep saying I saw the Scillies Yellowthroat in 1997 blah blah blah). Despite being brighter than a fluorescent jacket it kept itself well hidden and crawled around the long grass and brambles in a Radde's Warbler like manner.

Continuing the recent theme of un-prepared camera equipment I reached for the SLR only to discover that the battery was flat (probably due to being left overnight in the car). I managed to revive it enough for a few pics by keeping it in a warm place. I would like to point out to anyone who saw me with my hands down my pants, whilst watching the bird, that I was merely retreaving my battery. Anyhow I managed a dozen or so shots but inevitably they were all crap and the battery ran out - though I did attempt a few more warm ups! Apologies to the media friendly twitcher who shook my hand just after I'd put my battery 'on charge'!

One of the few (very poor) SLR shots

Marginally better digiscoped

Cracking HD video of a dead branch and half a Yellowthroat

An attempt to see the Bonaparte's Gull at Cardiff Bay Water Treatment Works,ended in abject failure when we couldn't find it - the water works that is!

17th February. Nuns on the Run

The recent freezing conditions brought an influx of Smew to the bottom half of England, so it was no surprise that once a thaw set in they would start to move. Sure enough, this morning, I stumbled into a stunning male on the smaller of the two Orgreave lakes. Typically I had left the SLR in the boot and worse still the Coolpix' memory card in the laptop. Fortunately the latter does have enough memory to take a handful of shots, so all was not lost.

The euphoria - of finding the Smew - was short-lived when I came across this news item http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-17072533 However, unlike Pit-house West this site was reclaimed with the intention of creating a large industrial development and eventually housing and consequently proper jobs. So unlike the Chinese fantasy shite I am not at all upset by this. I understand that the Rolls Royce site will sit at the northern most edge so, given the size of the site, will hopefully have little affect on the site. The development at Orgreave is a 25 year plan - so I'll be drawing my pension (if there's any money left) by the time the last brick is laid.

5th February. Lapping It Up

Having had a fairly fruitless trip to the patch this morning, and coupled with the throng of sledge's I was reluctant to go back down for the gull roost and had decided that the Bitterns at Pit-house West might be a better idea. After a session with the iron Jo decided that she wasn't bothered about going back out, and to be honest neither was I. However faced with almost two hours of Jamie Oliver (I didn't have the remote) I got back into my thermals and settled on the Orgreave gull roost.

There was already a good number of gulls on the ice with plenty more dropping in. The roost continued to build, but with the exception of a colour-ringed GBB Gull, nothing of interest. Irritable, I played about with the cameras video setting for a bit before I noticed a flock of Skylarks feeding around the path some 100 metres away. Scanning them with the scope, and hoping for a Shorelark (a real local mega) I was more than pleased when a Lapland Bunting hopped into my field of view. The flock seemed settled so I walked nearer, unfortunately before I could get the camera on it another sledging party flushed the whole flock! I expect that this bird might stick around until the skylarks move on, at least 60 birds have been hanging around the big hill for the last couple of days.

The tundra type habitat has clearly proven attractive this weekend.

4th February. What's going on?

A brief Knot this morning continued the last few days unprecedented wader influx - waders in winter are rare here. Better still was a male Merlin on the 'plain' perched on posts and then hunting Meadow Pipits, only the second record here.

Unusually for the time of year I managed a couple of mid-weeks visits this week. Too nice a morning yesterday to resist a visit, so taking advantage of some flexi-time I had a couple of hours on the patch scoring a useful year tick in the form of a Grey Plover.

I snook off early on Wednesday to take in the gull roost and refound the Caspian Gull , though frustratingly (again) I failed to get any decent images.

29th January. Casper

The gull roost has been building up again with mostly Black-headed Gulls (c.2000 last weekend) but last night several hundred big gulls roosted, raising my hopes of a white-winger. No white wings last night but a near adult Caspian was in the roost from 15:30 onward. Frustratingly I couldn't get a good look at the underwing, but the head shape, bill and beady dark eye looked spot on.

The video (taken in High Speed mode) adds nothing to the I.D of this bird except to show just how strikingly obvious the dark beady eye is. What you don't see is me running up the earth bund behind me and flapping my arms around in an attempt to mimic a huge bird of prey, a trick taught to me by hermit like warden Nick Riddiford on Fair Isle during that ill-fated trip of 86'. The point of flushing them was a desperate attempt for the bird to lift it's bloody wings - it did not even raise a metaphorical eyebrow! Actually this is not the intended video as that is 240mb and my (as previously mentioned) old laptop is currently grinding away trying to upload it!

Fortunately the bird roosted again this evening and Andy, Pete and Roy managed conclusive views and better photos. Incidentally this bird appears to have a knackered left leg.

27th January. New Toy

It's been a while since I did any digiscoping, mainly because my near vision is a bit crap these days and even with glasses I couldn't focus on the small screen of my well used Samsung NV3. After pondering for awhile over whether or not to get a new compact I narrowed the choice down to two cameras the Canon S95 and the Nikon P300. Being a fan of all things Nikon I opted for the latter - though being a typically tight Yorkshire man the £5o price difference swayed me more.

The Orgreave Little Owl was still present this morning and despite a strong breeze proved a good subject for the new camera to get to grips with.

Quite pleased with my first attempts and even happier with the homemade adaptor (saving more of my precious Yorkshire £'s).

The Video setting is very useful with High Speed and full HD, though the latter won't play on my ageing laptop (but the 720 option is more than adequate).

Overall the P300 is very easy to use with simple navigation around the more useful settings i.e. exposure compensation, ISO, aperture and self-timer.

15th January. Long Weekend

The long weekend got off to a good start with a Little Owl on the 'Plains' a new record for the site. Not much of a surprise as I've seen Little Owls at all the adjacent birding spots, with the exception of RVCP.

A pair of Peregrines putting on a spectacular aerial display was the highlight of Saturday afternoon. The evening gull roost has drastically reduced to just handful of large gulls with birds now favouring the more traditional Broomhead roost. Despite this I stuck it out until 4:15 when the numbness in my fingers became too much!


Sunday was another very cold clear start though the building cloud suggested that it might be a good day for goose passage. Sure enough between 9:15 and 9:45 at least 700 birds passed through. A Water Rail, on the river, was a useful self found year tick and almost made up for not finding this Whooper Swan.

8th January. Snow

Stumbled into this rather charming and very obliging Snow Bunting this morning. It's possibly the bird that's been popping up briefly since November, but the first time this year so I'm having it so there!

6th January. The Bus Home

There was something wrong with the bus journey home this evening. It all started when I overheard the bloke behind me moaning to his mate about how the only things in his freezer was pies.I would have offered to empty it for him, but he was wearing one of those hoodie things and probably would have stabbed me or worse.. That however wasn't the most disturbing thing (because nobody should moan about a fridge full of pies) the thing that upset me most was that when I got off the bus I was faced by one of those posters showing that witch Thatcher's evil bastard grinning head - okay so it's really Meryl Streep but it's close enough. Surely this would make a more appropriate poster for the buses of South Yorkshire...

2nd January. A Pie New Year

As the clock struck twelve the list hit zero and for a brief moment I was sad that my years efforts had come to an end, but soon the Unicum had kicked in and I was feeling more optimistic about the coming year and just a little bit pissed.

Nasty nasty nasty stuff

The First Pies Of The New Year

Spent the last day of 2011 at Slimbridge -why? Well we were down at the brother-in-laws for New Year - just a stones throw from last years Oriental Turtle Dove, and Slimbridge being just fifty miles away seemed a good bet for a day out. Obviously we saw lots of nice ducks with half their wings missing and some that had got there under their own steam. However the highlight was an half hour question and answer session on the Spoon-billed Sandpiper chicks that have been brought there with the aim of breeding, and eventually boosting the woefully low number of breeding birds. Following a brief talk we were treated to some live on site CCTV footage of the young (most of which had now attained 1st winter plumage). Ok so it wasn't Samut Sakorn, but it's probably the nearest I'll ever get to these enigmatic birds.