Patchwork Challenge 2015

One of my goals this year is to try and work a local patch, this will still be limited as I work and live in London during the week so am only home (most) weekends.  Every 2nd weekend my children stay over so I won't be able to visit every time they are visiting as it's not fair on them - they unfortunately do not share my passion for 'Geeking'.....

As I live in Bidford, the perfect local patch for me has to be Salford Priors Gravel Pits, I don't think they are watched a great deal although I believe a few local birders visit once a week.  Salford GP are still working pits, actually I believe the majority of the quarrying has been completed and unfortunately they're being returned to agricultural use.  Such a shame really as they site appeared not to have been touched for a good 5 years and already had the potential for a great reserve.

@NeilDuggan80 had also registered Salford GP for PWC2015 so we decided to cover as much ground between us to see what the area produces whilst maintaining our own PWC2015 lists.

Neil had already marked his territory and chose to cover the GP and the area to the West and North:

Neil's Patch - GP's bottom left.

 

So that left me with the South and East, which suited me fine as I live to the East and wanted to cover a few areas in this direction, obviously I've still included the GP's in my PWC2015. I included my garden as Tawny Owl pair visit in the evenings, the filed adjoining has 'stop-over' Turtle Dove most years so here's hoping:

 

My Patch - GP's centre left.

 

I believe Neil is off to a flying start however this was my first time home since Christmas so this was to be my inaugural visit.  This was a kids weekend so the wife kindly stayed at home with 2 of them whilst my daughter Rosie came along for the hell of it.

 

It was absolutely freezing at the GP's with a biting wind. Access was difficult as the path leading up to the main pit had been blocked by a huge mound of earth.  None the less we made our way round instantly being treated to some deer which we inadvertently spooked.

 

Our first species was a flock of Long-tailed Tit flitting around the small plantation, these were followed by a large number of Carrion Crow and Jackdaw feeding in the field to the right of the path.  Among them I found 1 Raven when they were flying between the tall trees of the plantation and the field.  Next was a Common Buzzard crying overhead, this then spooked a couple of hundred Woodpigeon also making use of the tall plantation trees.

 

We arrived at the Main Pit, I was hoping to see the Scaup Neil had reported the week before but I searched the water over and over and scrutinised the Tufted Duck time and again but I was unable to locate it.  The water held a small number of Eurasian Teal, Mallard, Coot and Little Grebe but not much else.

 

As we made our way to the Little Owl tree a few Meadow Pipits went up, Pied Wagtail, Goldfinch and Wren were also seen.  We didn't find the Little Owl which didn't surprise me in that biting wind, must have been hunkered down in his nesting hole.

 

I didn't go any further as Rosie was feeling the cold so we headed back and added Mute Swan and Canada Goose to the list whilst having another futile search for the Scaup.  Our timing was spot on as a tractor and trailer were crossing the field across from the main pit, the trailer full of shooting folk. We got back to the car and drove up to Pophills Pit where we added Red-legged Partridge, Black-headed Gull, Reed Bunting and Bullfinch and a bonus Grey Wagtail.  We stayed for 5 minutes to watch the shot but Rosie wasn't comfortable with it, she didn't like seeing the birds falling out of the sky.  She asked me "how do they know what they are shooting" to which I replied "Exactly". Coincidentally a story running on Twitter was of a shooter boasting of his 'Bag' in which he had Snipe, only the photo was of a Jack Snipe, just about answers Rosie's question really.

 

We headed home them were I added Dunnock and Collard Dove to the list from my garden.  Then last night I added Tawny which was sat in the tree 'kewicking'

Battersea Park

Had to work in London today so decided to have a quick wander around one of the parks, since I've recently visit Hyde and Regents I decided to opt for one of the more obscure ones and settled on Battersea Park.  As my recent run of luck would have it, as I arrived it started to rain.... pretty much par for the course now! My main aim for the day was to hopefully photograph a Ring Necked Parakeet, which in London should be no great feat.  I unfortunately only brought my 18-55mm lens so would have to do with some stand off shots as reflected in the photos produced today.

First up for me was a very obliging Dunnock, I have to constantly remind myself that I need to photograph the everyday species for this blog.

26. Dunnock

 

I've decided that until I have time to sit down and work out how to use an imaging software tool (photoshop, gimp etc), I will upload the full image as I've noticed that cropping it in Paint leaves the image a lot more blurred than if you just zoom into the original.  So although the remainder of todays photos look like landscape or scenery photos, I promise that if you click on them and zoom in then you will see a bird roughly in the middle of the image.

 

There wasn't a great deal of bird life around Battersea Park, a small number of Tufted Duck, a couple of Canada Geese and the odd Blue and Great Tit flitting around in the bushes was generally the mainstay. The most noticeable birds of the visit though were the noisy Grey Heron who are actively nest building and appear to be in the process of displaying.  There were quite a large number in the tops of the trees on the islands.

 

Walking around the boating lake, several Ring Necked Parakeets were observed flying over, they were also doing their best to drown out the noise of the Herons with their own particular racket....  Anyway I finally found one within reasonable photographing distance, the only problem was that it was in the top of a tree so I was shooting into a grey sky.  This is something that I need to work on as I find it almost impossible to work out the correct balance for making the subject stand out without over exposing the image, this was the best of a bunch I took, experimenting with different apertures, ISO's and shutter speeds...

 

27. Ring Necked Parakeet

 

On the other side of the boating lake amongst the Tufted Duck and Pochard were a couple of Red Crested Pochard and a pair of Gadwall, this was the best image I could get of the Gadwall as they swam away and into cover, I will endeavour to obtain a better image over the course of this blog however, for the sake of the race, this will suffice for now.

 

 28. Red Crested Pochard

 

29. Gadwall

 

I was now coming to the end of my walk around the park and was about to put the camera away ready for my trip across town to the office when I found some obliging Woodpigeon (I'd seen a fair few around the park but they were all in impossible poses/locations to allow a suitable shot to be taken).

 

30. Woodpigeon

 

After the woodpigeon I turned the camera off, then whilst walking out of the park I noticed a small movement in the hedgerow which turned out to be a Wren, he was more than happy scampering around in the undergrowth with me observing so I turned the camera back on and managed to capture quite a few shots which required a fair amount of adjustment with the aperture, ISO and eventually shutter speed just to get to the image below.  The first images I captured were all blurred, these were on an aperture of about f5 with ISO's from 100-3200, I then experimented using the flash which seemed to help, however when I loaded the images onto the computer, the images for which I'd used the flash were not quite as clear as those without.  The end result was f5.6, ISO 400, 1/13 exposure.  I have placed a red box around the Wren, just in case you don't believe he is there....!

 

31. Wren









Great Grey Shrike

Although the title is Great Grey Shrike, this was hopefully to be a bonus bird but would be my first UK bird having seen them in Iraq, Oman, Turkey and Cyprus etc, the target bird for today was Long Eared Owl representing a lifer for me. It's been mentioned as a side note to Great Grey Shrike reports on Therfield Heath that up to 4 Long Eared Owls have been present - oh and Short Eared Owl, Hen Harrier and Merlin, and that's in addition to Kestrel, Buzzard and Red Kite.......!

Anyway, I did some research on 'tinterweb' and established that the best place to start from was Briary Lane - which I did and the first bird I saw perched high in the tallest tree was the Great Grey Shrike - bonus, I took a whole raft of photos but my lack of experience and photography knowledge show as it was difficult shooting up into the grey light of the overcast sky.

Great Grey Shrike

 

I then walked up and then back down the Icknield Way in the company of a solitary Wren which insisted on following me up the path. I spent a while watch a flock of about 40 Linnet, Therfield Heath is apparently a Mecca for them with flocks up to 1000+ noted.  After a while I decided to head over to Grays Farm as the LEO's have often been reported in that region, however what other blogs/posts have failed to mention is that Grays Farm is private property and public access is not permitted, I had to graciously apologise to the farmer who was actually very understanding and obviously very patient as I can only assume this is a daily occurrence.  The farm is managed perfectly for wild birds for which area sightings are testament, the fields all have abundant wild margins for farmland birds.  I managed only my 2nd ever sighting of Grey Partridge, about 8 of them, my first and only sighting until today was way back in 1990 - 23 years ago!!!  My attention was drawn to their calls which was loud and boisterous, they seem very territorial.  There was also a lot of Red Legged Partridge about.  Around the farm there was a lot of feeders attracting a multitude of finches and a few Yellowhammer which were sometimes permitted a look in from the gangs of Reed Buntings..

 

Grey Partridge

 

I didn't managed to connect with a LEO today but it was still a fantastic day anyway with a 1st and 2nd for the UK.  It was also great to see the work that can be achieved by farmers if they are so inclined, I hope that Grays Farm continue the amazing work they do and fingers crossed that one day they will be willing to allow the public access, even if limited.