A.W.Birder: Always on the lookout for fine birds...: Melodious Warbler

Sunday, 27 May 2012

France Day 8: The Brenne & Melody Show

Went for a walk round one of the Etangs in the south of The Brenne park today which was rather pleasant. First off we sat in a hide and saw several Black-winged Stilts, Cattle Egret and heard a few Savi's Warblers but the main attraction here (for me at least) was the numerous Whiskered Terns in full breeding plumage flying about the place, often coming really close to the hide, they were very vocal too. Noticed that there was one Little Tern sat on the fence posts with them too. There was loads of Grey Heron about and 2 Purple Herons too. A few ducks were on the water, mainly Pochard, with several Mallard, Gadwall and a single male Teal. Also had Little Ringed Plover and Lapwing here. This looked a very interesting place so may try and get back early one morning.

View of the Etang

After a short while in the hide we then went for quite a long walk around the lake and through some countryside where there was quite a lot of Black Kite (including 2 that sat in a tree as we walked past - phone picture of one below), one Honey Buzzard and dozens of Common Buzzard about too.

Black Kite (phone-scoped)

Black Kite (phone-scoped) - it'd just coughed up a pellet

Several passerines were seen/heard including Savi's, Melodious, Sedge, Wood and Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Garden Warbler, CommonWhitethroat, and Nightingale. There was plenty of Stonechat and at least 5 Red-backed Shrikes, Common and Black Redstart, Tree Pipit, Woodlark, Skylark and (quite a few) Golden Oriole. Several Hoopoe flew around and there seemed to be Cuckoos everywhere.

After our walk we went briefly to the reserve base where we had a picnic lunch by the pond, here 2 Black Kite, and 2 Short-toed Eagles showed well, though with it being Sunday it was fairly busy with tourists/locals so we decided to make the most of the sun and head back to the Gite.

Late afternoon mainly involved watching the IPL final, though the result didn't go my way unfortunately. I did manage to find plenty of Short-toed Treecreeper, Nuthatch and a (the) pair of Spotted Flycatcher and a single Firecrest in the garden to keep me occupied. There was also a family party of fledgling Blue Tit which were very loud.

Highlight however was not a particularly rare bird, but just a great view of a singing male Melodious Warbler. Readers of my blog (and Dave in particularly) will know that I (we) put in hours (OK days) trying to connect with one when we were on the Scillies last Autumn (they're rare-ish in the North of England!). We eventually gained a few second glimpse of it at some ridiculous range! So I'm enjoying being able to watch these Melodious Warblers here so much. I took the following series of photos this afternoon on my phone. Light was quite bright but you get the idea.

Melodious Warbler (phone-scoped)

Thursday, 27 October 2011

Scillies Highlights Day 2, 3 & 4

As crazy as it may sound the last 3 posts all relate to Day 1, Dave and my first day on our second trip to the Scillies this autumn.

On day two there were several further highlights. After connecting with all the big stuff yesterday we decided to take a walkabout to see what we could find en route to a couple of birds we hadn't already caught up with. We set out along the coastal route and found a couple of Yellow-browed Warblers (one at Old Town Church and one at 'Nowhere'), the latter with a Firecrest, then as we continued on to Porth Hellick Pool we discovered a very smart Wryneck on the rocks. After enjoying the Wryneck for a while we continued down to the pool where we enjoyed great views of the long-staying 1st winter male 'white-spotted' Bluethroat. It was actively feeding right out in the open for a while but then it sat down in the vegetation and looked rather sickly before been flushed by some rather clueless twitchers. Redwings and Fieldfare had arrived weeks ago in Yorkshire but today they hit the Scillies in low numbers with 1 and 3 respectively.

Wryneck - Phonescoped

'White-spotted' Bluethroat feeding happily - Phonescoped

not looking so great - Phonescoped

On day three we spent the day doing circuits of Peninnis Head trying to connect with the rather elusive Melodious Warbler. There were more highlights in the form of 5 Yellow-browed Warbler where we found 3 at 'Nowhere' (but no sign of the Firecrest) and saw another 2 at Carreg Dhu Gardens showing well in a Sycamore. While bashing the head we noticed several Chaffinch (and 1 Brambling) flying through, along with several Meadow Pipit, however the clear highlights were a Richard's Pipit that flew low overhead calling, heading straight towards Cornwall, a Siberian Chiffchaff that worked its way along a hedge, a Short-eared Owl. Eventually, when the sun came out in the afternoon we even managed to connect up with the Melodious Warbler. We even had a couple of Mistle Thrush, a scarce bird on the Scillies apparently.

Short-eared Owl - Phonescoped

Mistle Thrush - Phonescoped at a bit of distance

On the fourth day we didn't fare too well, we spent all day around the Peninnis area again but didn't get much reward. We had a Great Northern Diver and 2 Pink-footed Geese fly low overhead. The Pink-footed Goose was only the 75th record of this species on the islands which was rather surprising! We also had a first-winter Black Redstart on Porthcressa Beach feeding amongst a few White Wagtails. For most of the day our mind was preoccupied with trying to make arrangements to get off the islands and over to Cornwall to try and connect with the UK mainlands first Scarlet Tanager, unfortunately we didn't manage it.

In order to not totally draw a blank for the day we took a quick wander through Lower Moors where we had a Yellow-browed Warbler near Shooters Pool and further views of Wilson's Snipe, this time it was with 2 nominate and one presumed faroeensis bird again all were showing well. We also decided to try for the Waterthrush. We'd both had breathtaking views of the bird a couple of weeks back but since then it had become a little bit more variable in its preferences, presumably as its favourite foraging places around the reserve have dried out. We had been hearing stories of people spending days and even weeks in some cases trying to catch up with it (which we both though was a little strange!) and when we walked up to Shooters Pool it took us a grand total of less than 5 minutes to locate and see the bird! Again, like our last visit the bird was very vocal. A remarkable bird that has been present for at least 42 days to date! I can't resist another of Andy Vinsons photographs of this bird. The end of the day had certainly improved the daily score however we were both worried that the trip was petering out and had peeked on our first day.