Local and worldwide wildlife adventures. Drone cameraman to TV's Nigel Marven. Dedicated Nikon user. Follow me on Twitter @chardbirder and Instagram: www.instagram.com/chardherper/. All images on this Blog are copyright of the Owner/contributors and cannot be used without written permission. All views expressed are my own. Translation to other languages available at the end of the page.
Long predicted and long awaited, this young Surf Scoter appeared off Blue Anchor in North Somerset about a week ago. Dave Helliar managed to get some very reasonable shots of it last Monday and I'm hoping it hangs around so that I can get up there to see it too. Still present until yesterday at least:
Juvenile Surf Scoter, Blue Anchor: Dave Helliar
Juvenile Surf Scoter, Blue Anchor: Dave Helliar
Juvenile Surf Scoter, Blue Anchor: Dave Helliar
Juvenile Surf Scoter, Blue Anchor: Dave Helliar
Up until a couple of days ago the weather had been unseasonably mild too. Locally Dave found a Painted Lady still on the wing as well as a few good birds.
Painted Lady - tatty but still on the wing: D.Helliar
Med Gull: D. Helliar
Lesser Redpoll: Dave Helliar
Lesser Redpoll: Dave Helliar
Mandarin Ducks: Dave Helliar
Pair of Mandarins: Dave Helliar
Thanks to Dave for sharing his photos from the last week.
If, like me, you regularly find yourself wishing you'd brought your bins out with you (usually when out with the family and 'not birding' - no, we never actually switch off do we). Then you may also have considered keeping a spare pair in the car so that you're never caught out. The advantage of this is that it doesn't wind-up my better half - leaving the house for some quality family time with your bins swinging around your neck never really cuts it with the spouse and offspring and is invariably met with groans of displeasure.
It was with this in mind that I decided to purchase a cheap pair of bins to keep under the driver's seat for emergencies. Having spent a bit of time researching what was out there I decided to take a chance on a pair of Tom Lock 2 8x42's priced at an incredible £99.00....yes, that's right...£99.00! I'd read some very good reviews about them and just had to see what the fuss was about. I also happened to have a £20 Amazon gift voucher to sweeten the deal even more so for just £79.00 I secured a pair and tried them recently at the Pallas's Warbler gig at Brean. Well, to say I was surprised was an understatement. I've never been able to afford top brand optics, with a young family to think about (and fund) they are way out of my range and let's face it, we've all met birders with £2000.00 bins dangling round their necks who couldn't tell a coal tit from capercaillie - it's certainly not the rule that expensive optics are going to improve your fieldcraft or ID skills! So anyway, here they are:
Very average looking but punch
well above their weight.
Tom Lock 2 bins. A steal at £99 and
worth a punt.
I won't waffle about how sharp the image is or how decent the contrast is or how light they are in the hands and fully waterproof etc. That's all been said here. No, they're not perfect and if you were to compare them side-by-side with a pair of Swaros, Leicas or Zeiss of course you'll notice a difference but I don't think you will see £1800 worth of difference! Believe me for £99.00 you can't go wrong, these are nearly 'chuck away' bins - if you drop them you won't spend too long crying about it. But they will bring a smile to your face and you'll be just under £2000 better off t'boot. In fact I'm so impressed that they've become my main pair, relegating my Bushnell Legend HD's to the 'under driver seat' position. Now I'm just waiting for them to bring out spotting scopes.
Note: I have heard the Tom Lock 2 10x42's don't have a great field of view compared to more expensive models but the 8x42's are great. The above ramblings are based entirely on the 8x42's.
I wasn't suppose to be birding today but as chance would have it I managed to jam a couple of hours in before I was needed at home. I seized the opportunity and immediately jumped in the car and headed to Seaton to spend a brief hour checking the river. Yesterday Steve Waite had a superb find of two Caspian Gulls and a Yellow-legged there, so things were looking promising. That said it was only an hour after high tide this morning, never normally a good time to see anything much on the river and I didn't expect to see anything other than wigeon.
When I arrived I could see about 50 large gulls loafing on the river half way between Coronation Corner and the bridge. A thorough scan with the scope revealed nothing other than a few Common Gulls and handful of Lesser-black backed among the Herring flock. Then a first winter Med popped into view on the far bank with a dozen or so Black-headed gulls, better than nothing and more than expected!
I returned to the flock on the water and almost immediately hit upon a 1st winter Caspian Gull bathing among them (presumably the same bird as yesterday - haven't had time to compare pics with Steve's bird). What a cracking bird, all the usual features easily seen with great scope views. Bit overcast for decent photos but you can see it clearly enough.
Caspian Gull, Seaton: R. Harris
Caspian Gull, Seaton: R. Harris
Caspian Gull, Seaton: R. Harris
Caspian Gull, Seaton - check out the size compared the Herring in the foreground: R. Harris
Again, showing how big it was compared to
the Herring Gull in front of it: R. Harris
As I went to move my coat off the bannister a few mornings back, I noticed a small spider walking across it. Thinking it was going to be one of the regular species I decided to catch it nonetheless just to move it out of harms way. It was only then that I got a closer look at it and immediately recognised it as Scytodes thoracica, a species I'd seen a few times but mostly in the south-east. I'd never encountered one locally before.
Scytodes is unusual in that it is the only species in the UK that actually spits its venom/web cocktail at its prey, sticking it down and allowing time for the spider to walk in and bite it properly. It's also unusual in having such a large domed thorax, almost rotund in appearance. This one was around 5 mm in body length, they're not big! They are always strikingly marked with bold black markings too, though not that noticeable until you zoom in close to them.
Scytodes thoracica: R. Harris
Scytodes thoracica: R. Harris
Scytodes thoracica: R. Harris
It's nice to still find new species for the house list at Whitestaunton!
Thanks to Dave Helliar who went to see and photograph three Cattle Egrets that turned up in Devon recently. Always great to see them, what a pity they haven't colonised yet!
Cattle Egrets, Teingrace, Devon: D. Helliar
Cattle Egret, Teingrace, Devon: D. Helliar
Dave also tied in the long staying Serin at Exmouth, often a difficult bird to see in the open let alone get onto with a bridge camera:
Serin, Exmouth: Dave Helliar
Otherwise pretty quiet locally at the moment. Thanks to Dave for sharing his photos.
Late last Saturday Dave Helliar picked up a 'Common Sand' on his local patch but alarm bells immediately rang as a) it was very late for a common sandpiper, b) it looked very short-tailed and c) its legs looked yellowish. Bear in mind this was at considerable distance and even with his scope on full 60x magnification, it was too far away to see any detail on the bird or be sure of its ID. He sent me a text which mentioned the words 'spotted sandpiper' but as the light had gone and it was so distant I shelved the idea of taking a look and thought no more of it.
Skip forward to Sunday. Dave was back on his patch first thing when news of the Pallas's Warbler broke. While phoning him he mentioned that the bird was still present and the legs still looked yellow but it was still fairly distant and moving around against a background which made it difficult to judge the colour accurately. Do I go and have a look now or do we head off to see the Pallas's Warbler? Well, the Pallas's won out as you can see from the previous post. No regrets there, it was a cracking little bird.
On the way home we decided to try and connect with the sandpiper, hoping it would be closer for better views. A quick scan of the area it had been frequenting revealed no sign of it at all. A few expletives later and we'd written it off as a 'maybe but we'll never know' and moved on to view another part of his patch. Within minutes Dave had picked it up walking amongst grass along the waters edge and yes, it certainly had bright yellow legs when viewed in sunlight against a green background! It was incredibly active and quite skittish but after a patient wait it came to within 50-60ft and we managed photos, video and excellent views that confirmed it was indeed a Spotted Sandpiper!
Hindsight is a great thing and had we spent the day getting better views of this one rather than going for the Pallas's, we could have got news out about it sooner (should be noted though that up until this last visit on Sunday afternoon, the bird had been on private land with no general access anyway). Unfortunately a thorough search of the area today was unsuccessful in relocating it and it has presumably moved on. A superb find by Dave and a fantastic bird to see locally. Look out Seaton it could be with you soon!
1st winter Spotted Sandpiper: Dave Helliar
1st winter Spotted Sandpiper: Dave Helliar
1st winter Spotted Sandpiper: Dave Helliar
1st winter Spotted Sandpiper: Dave Helliar
1st winter Spotted Sandpiper: Dave Helliar
Spotted Sandpiper: R. Harris
Spotted Sandpiper - showing classic features
of short tail and yellow legs: R. Harris
You can see that the tertial feathers appear very plain and the overall tone is much greyer when compared to the two Common Sandpipers further down the page.
Spotted Sandpiper - as close as it got on full zoom. Shows the dark breast-sides not forming a complete band. Usually more extensive on Common Sand: R. Harris
For comparison purposes, here are a couple of Common Sandpipers taken at Chard Res which conveniently show the longer tail, greenish legs, more complete breast band and well marked tertials. Spotted sands have a subtly different head shape too, which helps contribute to their characteristic jizz.
No sooner had I wished for a Pallas's Warbler (see last post), than one popped up in Somerset - only the 2nd County record at that! Unbeknownst to me Dave H. was checking Twitter regularly just like myself yesterday morning, when the news broke that one was showing by the track leading to the farm at Brean Down. After a quick phone call we were on our way within 20 minutes and on site well within the hour. The first birder we met said it hadn't been seen for an hour-and-a-half ! Strange because we were on site in less than an hour-and-a-half since the news broke? Anyhow, after a fairly short wait it was seen briefly flitting through some sycamores before disappearing again only to re-surface close to where it had been originally seen.
No photos or video unfortunately. Like most Pallas's Warblers this well-marked individual was buzzing around like a ferret on amphetamines giving clear but all too brief views before vanishing once more.
Things really seem to have gone quiet locally. With plenty of rare birds at either end of the country recently, this part of the West feels like we are in a black hole for goodies at the moment. Indeed I haven't seen a single scarce bird this Autumn, partly because work has been busy and I haven't been able to shoot off but also a distinct lack of twitchable rares within striking distance. Still, there have been a few spiders out-and-about in the cool, grey weather and I've still recorded Noctule, Pipistrelle and Soprano Pipistrelle up until a few days ago.
Lepthyphantes tenuis (just 2mm long): R. Harris
Mangora acalypha : R. Harris
Zygiella x-notata: R. Harris
A male Speckled Bush Cricket found its way into the bathroom too:
Speckled Bush Cricket: R. Harris
It's not too late for something good to put in an appearance - here's hoping for a Pallas's warbler in the next week or two.
The Ivy flowers in the hedgerows are attracting incredible numbers of insects at the moment. In Whitestaunton the dominant species is definitely this large fly, Mesembrina meridiana:
Mesembrina meridiana: R Harris
Closely followed by Yellow Dung Fly, Scathophaga stercoraria:
Scathophaga stercoraria: R. Harris
But there are some really smart hoverflies attracted to them too, including these two (thanks Dave H. for providing their ID):
Helophilus pendulus: R. Harris
Sericomyia silentis: R. Haris
Sericomyia silentis: R. Haris
Spiders are still high on the agenda too with this lovely Larinioides cornutus seen in good numbers on a brief visit to Ham Wall on the Somerset Levels today. They are orb web spiders and use to belong to the Araneus family until a number of biological differences placed them into a family of their own along with 4 other species. They are frequently found in grass and reeds close to water where the females, like this one, make a hideaway out of dead grass heads.
Larinioides cornutus: R. Harris
This Linyphia was found in the garden but is more frequently seen in the hedgerows where is builds a horizontal web in bushes such as gorse.
It's been a fantastic evening for bats! It's only 8 degrees outside as I write this and there must be tons of insects about as it's one of the busiest nights for bats that I've had so far this Autumn. There have been at least two Serotines, Eptesicus serotinus constantly flying around the garden, a Common Noctule, Nyctalus noctula, which keeps coming and going and the Common Pipistrelle, Pipistrellus pipistrellus, which lives in the attic and has been hunting around the gables all evening. Naturally I got outside with the bat detector and made a few recordings:
Note the irregular rhythm to the pulses of the Serotine, very distinctive of this species.
To me the long ranging 'chip, chop' sound of the Common Noctule sounds very much like a horse trotting along a road, again very distinctive of the species.
Both Serotine and Noctule are large bats (for the UK) - both have wingspans over 30cm and when you get a view of either they can appear quite striking in size.
Just after sunset is the busiest time as the bats emerge to feed. Although I've noted activity of one degree or another throughout the night, things definitely get quieter after about 10pm.
Autumn is the prime time for finding spiders in the UK. Many species reach adulthood in August and September and become much more noticeable and numerous. After a few short field trips in the past week I've found large numbers of Araneus species around including some spectacularly large specimens.
Araneus quadratus: R. Harris
They come in a variety of colours
Araneus quadratus: R. Harris
Araneus quadratus: R. Harris
Araneus marmoreus: R. Harris
Not the commonest species - always a pleasure to see.
Araneus marmoreus: R. Harris
Araneus diadematus: R. Harris
This little Cheiracanthium erraticum is also frequently found at the moment, mainly in long grassy areas where they bend the tops of the stems over to make a little hideaway.
Cheiracanthium erraticum: R. Harris
Cheiracanthium erraticum hideaway. R. Harris
Of course spiders aren't the only creatures you will encounter when searching through the undergrowth. I counted seven juvenile Common Lizards Zootoca vivipara sunning themselves too.
Common Lizard: R. Harris
Slow Worm, Anguis fragilis: R. Harris
Meadow Grasshopper, Chorthippus parallelus
Closer to home in the garden at Whitestaunton, the apple trees are laden with fruit, as they are in most places this year. The fallen bounty makes ripe pickings for the flies and wasps. This one is Vespula vulgaris.
Vespula vulgaris: R. Harris
Hoping the current run of good weather continues for a while yet. There are a few spiders I'd like to get under my belt this year and haven't really had the chance until now.
