Italian Lifers...

Just back from a long weekend in Italy visiting Venice and Rome, this wasn't a birding trip, I only had a small pair of 8x25's and never stopped for birding specifically.

That said I managed 3 lifers even though I only saw 22 species!

I started with a few days in Venice, very nice city and very easy to spend the day walking in circles.

I think the first bird I saw was Yellow-legged Gull and by the end of the weekend I understood why - they are everywhere..!

Yellow-legged Gull

Whilst on the train across to Venice I was gobsmacked by the number of summer plumaged Black-necked Grebe in the bay, must have been in excess of 20 within the Mallard.  I only had a 55mm lens so this is the best image I managed from a moving train.  Saw a flock of 9 Little Egret and a single Black-winged Stilt.

Black-necked Grebe

There were plenty of Italian Sparrow and Feral Pigeon around the market stalls.

Italian Sparrow

Got some amazing views (although crap photos) of summer plumaged Mediterranean Gull and Black-headed Gull down by the Arsenale di Venezia.

Mediterranean Gull

Next was a couple of days in Rome which seems pretty devoid of bird life at first glance.  Again there are Yellow-legged Gull just about everywhere, even on top of St Peter's Basilica and the Coliseum.

My 2nd lifer of the trip was Monk Parakeet in the trees around the Vatican along with Ring-necked Parakeet.

When visiting the Castel Sant' Angelo I again saw plenty of Yellow-legged Gull, Italian Sparrow and Feral Pigeon.  I also got my first close up view of a Hooded Crow which I expected to see everywhere.

Hooded Crow

 

There were loads of Eurasian Swift, Barn Swallow and House Martin flying up and down the river, all year firsts.  Also saw my only Collared Dove of the trip.

 

Collared Dove

 

It was a nice surprise to see Black Redstart and Blackcap at Largo di Torre Argentina although I wouldn't like to speculate how long they'll last as the ruin was home to about 8 cats.

 

Only other birds were a handful of Blackbird and Magpie.

 

I had read on the internet that Serin were abundant and I was sure I could hear them everywhere although I could never find one - until I was looking at Foro Romano when I heard one very close, it was actually under my nose but I didn't see it until it flew up, hence my usual amazing photograph, this was my 3rd lifer of the trip..

 

Serin

 

Only other species I saw was Greenfinch when waiting for the bus to the Airport



Draycote Geese

My year list is only at 106 and 101 of them were found in January so this morning I decided to give the patch a miss and head up to Draycote Reservoir to try to boost that tally.  As per usual I had a time limit so I was out the door at 06:45.

I was the first car in the car park but only by a few mins, as I was getting the scope out another car arrived with two birders.

I took a walk along to Toft Bank in search of the Smew, I was hoping for Goldeneye and Goosander too as both birds have frustratingly evaded me so far this year.

It wasn't long before I found a female Goldeneye so that was a good start, there didn't appear to be much on the water at all, scope views of the opposite bank showed a large flock of Canada Geese with quite a lot of Mallard and Great Crested Grebe distributed across the far side of the reservoir.

There were loads of Pied Wagtail and even more Meadow Pipit hunting around the grassy verge.  The water close in held quite a few Coot and quite a lot of Little Grebe.

Coot

I arrived at Toft Bank and found the Black-necked Grebe which had also been reported but I couldn't find the Smew anywhere.

Black-necked Grebe

A group of Canada Geese containing a single Greylag Goose flew over head and I got to watch a Buzzard in the field hunting for worms.

The two other birdwatchers had gone on ahead and when returning kindly gave me directions to a field with a flock of Greylag Geese which also contained 2 European White-fronted Geese and a single Pink-footed Goose, these gave me another 2 year ticks.

Crappy phone scoped Geese

1 of the White-fronts - honest....

I should maybe give up with this photography lark - in my defence though, my DSLR seems to have a faulty sensor and my phone got stolen so I'm using a crappy Samsung Fame on which the camera is dire...

On the way back to the car I found 3 male Goldeneye, dapper birds and made up for missing the Smew - which was latter reported as present

Goldeneye

This evening we visited friends in Cheltenham so I took the opportunity to nip to Pitville Park to look for the Dartford Warbler which has been there for some time now.  I left it too late though as it was already past dusk so I failed to find it.  I did manage some great views of a pair of Stonechat though so that was nice.  I had to mess around with the camera a lot with the sensor being knackered, this is the best I could manage.

Stonechat

Stonechat

1st Outing of 2015 - Dorset - Day 1

The wife and I were invited to a friends for New Year - in Dorset! I obviously started hatching plans for both my 2014 (end) and 2015 (start) year lists...... However....as we used to say in the Army (I'm sure they still say it), 'No plan survives first contact'  To start with the head gasket went on the car, so, I bought a second hand one the following day but the head gasket went on that one 24hrs later!!!!

 

Anyway, this weekend I returned to Dorset in a nice shiny hire car (to scrap the 2nd car) with 2 days geeking re-planned.

 

Day 1 was spent with the nice people from the Upton/Poole RSPB group on their monthly field trip, I stumbled across this event when checking out local sightings.  The weather was forecast to be treacherous with high winds and heavy rain. It was windy alright but fortunately the rain held off.

 

I rose nice and early and headed to Shell Bay on Studland where the group were meeting, I took the longer route and went via RSPB Arne as there had been some great reports from the day before, namely 8 Spotted Redshank, Avocets in their 100's and a few Spoonbill.  I had check the tide table, low tide was at 07:00 so I arrived at 08:00 with the hope it had started to make its way back in, it hadn't.  Being the first outing of the 2015, every species is new :)  Middlebere contained approx. 120 Eurasian Teal, 30 Eurasian Widgeon and a fair number of Curlew and Redshank, I was unable to find any Spotted Redshank though.  I only stayed for about 20 minutes as I had to get to Sandbanks.  On the way back to the car I added Green Woodpecker and Long-tailed Tit.

 

I arrived at Shell Bay to strong winds and rain, it didn't look promising.  Still, about 10 members of the group had turned up and were willing to brave the elements so the guided walk was on.

We headed for the beach which we planned to follow, the first birds were Shag, then somebody picked up some birds flying towards us - 5 Dark-bellied Brent Goose, that was me happy.  I couldn't believe it when I heard some Terns screeching, but there they were, 3 Sandwich Terns patrolling up and down the shoreline with a group of Black-headed Gulls, I'd seen reports of 1 overwintering but never thought we'd find it , never mind 3..!

Our walk along the beach also presented us with Pied Wagtail, Sparrowhawk, Meadow Pipit, Cormorant, Sanderling and a further ~20 Dark-bellied Brents, a good start I thought.

 

We took a walk over to Brands Bay next, I didn't know there was a hide there, this time last year I stood in the bitter cold and wind, eyes streaming, looking for a Surf Scoter... No need this time, 10 happy campers squashed snugly into the hide for a scan of the Bay.

 

There were quite a few Shelduck, a couple of Eurasian Teal, a Little Egret and what looked like 3 Red-necked Grebe although the view wasn't good enough for me to be content they weren't Great  Crested. One of the group (with Eagle eyed vision) then picked up a duck across the bay, I was the only one who'd brought a scope so was asked to have a look, it was a cracking male Pintail.

 

We all headed back to the cars to take a drive up to Middle Beach, we spent some time scanning the open water below us, the Black-necked Grebe never disappoint here at this time of year, we quickly got onto a group of 7, lovely little birds.  There were some great beasts of Great Black-backed Gulls on the water, we also had a Red-necked Grebe in with 3 Great Crested Grebe which I found bizarre seeing on salt water.  Somebody found a small raft of duck so I put the scope on and there were 8 female Long-tailed Duck with an extremely handsome male.

 

After way too much excitement (for me anyway), we went to look for the Ring-necked Parakeets, I wasn't overly bothered what with living in London during the week.  We didn't manage to locate the Parakeets but I did managed to find a female Common Scoter quite close in on the water, one of the group had Goldcrest too.

 

The group called it a day at that point and we all went to the Middle Beach café for a nice brew, I managed a sausage sandwich too :o)  When we returned to the cars, I could resist one last look at the Long-tailed Duck.  I failed to relocate them but did find a Great Northern Diver.

 

I'd like to thank the Upton/Poole branch of the RSPB for allowing me to join them for their walk, I had a great morning with some very friendly people and got to see some fantastic birds which would not have been possible without their local knowledge of the area.