Echoes (a.k.a. Pulling Teeth)

So October came and went, without too much to show for it, unless you count a little flush of quackers that started with Shoveler, exactly as predicted last time round (but only my third on the island and my first addition in 23 days) and culminated in two Ferruginous Ducks along with a grubby Pochard, arriving next day and still present at the time of writing. That latter appears to be the first island record, as far as I can ascertain, and hence rarer than Little Crake, if you take the parochial view. By any standards, November has somewhat stumbled along too, and, despite some great birding and significant finds to be made elsewhere in the country, most of it has passed us by here. So desperate have times become that I am now reduced to having to go chase other people’s birds, but, with seemingly half the BTO breathing down my neck, I can’t be complacent. Hence I sent Steve out to work his magic on Sunday and followed in his slipstream once I could make an early get-away today: I didn’t need his Hume’s Warbler thanks to this (which was a good job, as I failed this time round) so could concentrate on a recalcitrant and grouchy Red-breasted Flycatcher (at last – was starting to think I was cutting it fine on that one) and, miles better, a wicked Robin that, after a lot of teasing, eventually came out to the tape and showed brilliantly. And was still singing half an hour later when I went back through again. This will hardly seem ground breaking if you are based in the New Forest or Norfolk but out here Robins are ethereal, very scarce and near-invisible chats and, being pale, grey-tinged eastern birds, not bad looking either once you finally get to grips with one. My last on AD was September 2008, and I’ve only seen two others elsewhere in the country since. The last was one I found last December in the west, then twitched by Steve for his year list this January, so some sort of faintly resonating justice there in the end.

I guess 20 Hypocolius aren’t too be sniffed at either, and other decent local records have included a few more Spoonbills, another Pintail, Night Heron again (more this year than ever, by some margin), a few late-running Tree Pipits and the first stonechats and Daurian Shrikes back with aplomb.

Total so far - 193 (107%)

Last additions – Red-breasted Flycatcher and European Robin (13^th November)

Waxwing lyrical

Whilst out dirty carbon twitching (or dipping, more to the point) on Saturday, I got the inevitable call that there was a patch tick on my doorstep. Abandoning a frankly impossible American Golden Plover somewhere in darkest Cambridgeshire, I was back home in time to jump on the bike, pedal a couple of miles and enjoy 4 fine Waxwing (166), before they disappeared off into the setting sun.

Percentage of target to date - 107%

Distance cycled - 629.5mls / 1,013.1km

Latest addition -  Waxwing (166) 10 November

Dipper for breakfast

Late autumn has already outstripped early autumn by some margin in the Brecks, as my last 3 posts (and a Dusky Warbler for a very lucky few) show. In the last 24 hours things have got even better. Mid afternoon yesterday, a civilian* but 'countryside savvy' colleague presented a photo of a Dipper he'd taken on his iPhone 915m from my office a couple of hours earlier... without fully appreciating the significance of it! An immediate evacuation followed but the 7 of us who spent our coffee break along the river dipped.

Dawn Balmer and I took our stations at 6:45am this morning... and to my great relief, a dapper Black-bellied Dipper (165) appeared at 7:10am. Several BTO birders saw it over the next 30 minutes, including Mike Toms, who has kindly allowed me to post one of his pics (taken at the last place I saw it, about 200m southwest of Melford Bridge):

Not dipped!

Attempts to keep tabs on it were thwarted by a great show from the local otter(s) - thanks to Neil Calbrade for this one!

Normally the highlight of a walk along the Thet

*There are 2 types of humans: birders and civilians. One type appreciates the significance of a Dipper in Thetford. The other doesn't.

Percentage of target to date - 106%

Distance cycled - 595.5mls / 958.4km

Latest addition -  Dipper (165) 7 November

Snow rest

Sunday was a day to stay inside: grim weather and an even grimmer D&V bug I'd picked up from my nephew during half-term hols in Cornwall. So it was that I was languishing in my sick bed at 11am when a text alerted me to a serious sighting reported on the local news group the previous evening: a male Snow Bunting less than 6 miles away! Cycling – in the driving rain – in the state I was in was out of the question, though I did manage to drag myself out of bed and drive over to see it. 

Snow Bunting in classic puddle-in-beet-field habitat

This morning, after a couple of Panadol to quell the lingering light-headedness, I set off on the bike. It was a spectacular autumn morning and the 16.8 miles weren't too bad, all things considered. The return leg was particularly easy, given that Snow Bunting (164) was now safely OML! 

Percentage of target to date - 106%

Distance cycled - 593.3mls / 954.8km

Latest addition -  Snow Bunting (164) 5 November

Ditto

Black gold. Again! This time rolled into one bird... a drake Common Scoter (163)!!! I'm never normally one for multiple explanation marks but if you've ever birded the Nunnery Lakes, you'll appreciate that it is no Grafham Water: a true seaduck here is mega! As my typically bad luck would have it, I was 10 minutes into a lunch-break-ruining meeting with several 'externals' when the text came through from Neil Calbrade. A whole four nerve-wracking hours later (no thanks to the "It's looking flighty" text from another Lakes listing colleague!), and as the gloom rapidly descended, I hurtled down to the lakes, where the boy was still in residence. Wot a burd!

Patch magic
(still present 24 October, still gloomy)

(still present 25 October, less gloomy...)

Percentage of target to date - 105%

Distance cycled - 576.5mls / 927.8km

Latest addition -  Common Scoter (163) 22 October

Black Gold

September may be a great time to be birding on the coast but it's a different story inland, particularly in 'passage wader habitat impoverished' areas like the Brecks – as you can see from the flat-lining species accumulation that both TEAL Cup teams experienced last September. October, on the other hand, seems to bring interest even 45 miles from the nearest coastal migration hotspot...

First up, news on the local forum of a returning shoo-in on the recently sown arable of West Suffolk. A carbon reccy on a wet Tuesday morning, and a Thursday afternoon off later, and Golden Plover (161) was belatedly on the bike list.

Better still, and with a bit more help from my friends, a typically animated Black Redstart (162), in classic Black Redstart habitat. BTO Nunnery Lakes warden Chris Gregory found it — an unappealing 24 mile round trip away — on Sunday, and I dirty-carbon-twitched (and phonescoped) it a few hours later. 33 miles in the saddle on Thursday, however, saw it safely on the only list that really counts!

More phonescoping magic

Other rewards for my efforts included my latest-ever Stone-curlew (4), an I-can't-see-you-so-you-can't-see-me Little Owl, and the first Fieldfare of the autumn.

Percentage of target to date - 105%

Distance cycled - 575.5mls / 926.2km

Latest addition -  Black Redstart (162) 18 October

Suspect device

I get really fed up with Acrocephali. It’s not that they scare me (the effect they have on most sensible and well-balanced people); I actually quite like pitting my wits against them and have hit the net a couple of times during my time in the Middle East. However, they are an unremitting, inevitable and literal pain in the neck here on Abu Dhabi island. With practically no ground cover of any quality whatsoever, any self-respecting (or hungry) warbler is shurely to be found 20 feet up in the Ghaf trees and that means you are always going to struggle; finding one does little more than give you a sinking pit in your stomach. And this was the case with my only small Acro so far this autumn; picked up yesterday, it had me straining and cursing as I tried and failed to piece together views beyond a seemingly longish thin bill running off the end of a decent (for an Acro) supercilium, unsettlingly colourless underparts and a wispy, flattened general shape. Not a hope of primary projection, remex edges, tertials or emarginations on this one and so predictably all I had to show was severe warbler neck and a stubbed toe on a thorn, to remind me that I still had feet (not having seen them for 30 minutes). Menetries’s, Olly and Chiffy all materialised and gave killer views in that same tree, but not a bit of what I was really after.

Equally boring and featureless, yet much, much easier, we have also had a decent, early arrival of Plain Leaf-Warblers. I am now on six for AD this October; we always get a few autumn birds that cross the Gulf and hit the coast instead of the mountains directly but this year they have been especially obliging. In contrast, wheatears and shrikes have been at a low ebb locally and so I am still waiting for my first isabellinus. However, perfectly timed with previous years, Nightjars came through in a strong wave last weekend, with scores of seven on Friday and four or five more next day. One of the latter was the most perfectly posed I have seen for many years; it is easy to be blasé about kicking these hauntingly evocative birds out of dusty scrub here in the UAE, so one like this at 10 feet every so often is a necessary re-calibrator.

Other good birds have included the first Pin-tailed Snipe just back in, returning Heuglin’s Gulls and White Wagtails (found five Masked not far off island last week but none so far where it counts), my second Rosefinch of the autumn, up to two Wrynecks in a day (it’s been my best year ever for these) and the marvellous spectacle of eight Black-crowned Night-Herons circling at dawn; I have only seen one other suspected migrant here in six years. Less rare but more welcome was a Northern Pintail; Shoveler next?

Total so far - 188 (104%)

Last additions – Plain Leaf-Warbler (5^th October)

Beauty and the beast to finish with...