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...

State of emergency

Well, it wasn’t a bloody Baillons, but it took us a few days to get on top of it. My assembled crack team (particle physicist, doting father, Yorkshire comedian and itinerant drifter of no fixed abode) invested much time and effort next day trying to pin it down, and despite mp3s, a ghetto blaster, garden shears, matches and a 5 litre canister of kerosene, it was all to no avail save for a 5 second glimpse for Simon, whose instant response was LITTLE. No luck for me, that day or the next, although I did somewhat limit my chances by sticking to the plan and clearing off to Lulu on Friday morning for a bout of more active hunting. At least out there if I found a bird that I couldn’t see, nobody else would be able to either. There has been plenty of migrants coming through throughout the second half of September, and Lulu, as usual, gave me a great sampling: three each for Golden Orioles and Nightjars plus the usual drizzling of Sylvias, wheatears – including my second Red-tailed of the year, shrikes and co. Plenty more this week have included a most unusual autumn Whinchat, a rather early Bluethroat and daily Spotted Flycatchers and hirundines, especially Sand Martins which are probably having their best ever September. All that has been great, but hardly in the league of

 yee gods - Little Crake

and an early start on Saturday morning, my fifth attempt at the time (and I have failed again a few times since), finally produced a countable, even decent view. Once we cleared that little urchin up, the temporary deadlock was well and truly broken and the year ticks started flowing again: Namaqua Dove within 30 minutes (only my 3^rd ever on AD), next day Eurasian Spoonbill (was confident this one was coming eventually) and, a few days later, Temminck’s Stint, another target, but only just. A seemingly more secure target when all this began, Thrush Nightingale had long since been written off due to a miserable May, as I have just one autumn record, as opposed to ten spring ones in the entire country but the finding of one or two off-island on Friday last gave me hope and this culminated 24 hours later when one scudded across the road at the racecourse and was then professionally pished out off a dense bougainvillea for a wicked and educational view. Caspian Plover and Egyptian Nightjar, both also seen off-island last week (within 30 minutes of each other!;:-) have yet to appear closer to home, although represent real and rather long shots respectively. However, proof that I still was on a roll yesterday came when we found a roosting Barn Owl at Emirate’s Palace – my closest ever as I have never got within 6 feet of any in Norfolk – and only my fourth on the island plus the first, for anyone as far as know, since 2008. 

So I was over the hills and far away, until I decided to concur with Nick and revise a few targets. Moorhen, two Marsh Terns and Red-tailed Wheatear all doubtfully missed the cut back at the start of the year, so adding them to the expected total, now revised to 180, seems reasonable and means that for almost everything left that isn’t a target, I have seen two times (or less) locally in six years of hard slogging.

OSCAR

Total so far - 186 (103%)

Last additions – Thrush Nightingale and Barn Owl (29^th September)

The song remains the same

Another night, another boot. The golf course had flames licking round the edges rather nicely on arrival; my old friend, that Whiskered Tern had pulled in two more marsh terns tonight and one was a marvellous, neat juvenile White-winged that gave terrific views; only my 5^th ever locally and not one I was sure I would get on the current campaign. Soon after that, I turned to find a Hobby steaming across the lake towards me, then for it to settle on the closest large boulder and give the best (i.e. most static) view I have ever had of the species; here in the Emirates they are usually hyper-kinetic. It was my 15^th in 6 years here on AD and, marginally, my earliest ever in the autumn. As if that wasn’t enough, a long-awaited pratincole also materialised, an easy juvenile Collared giving great close-ups and nice, instructive flight views. The only fly in the ointment (or date in the chocolates, to introduce some local flavour) was a glimpse of a crake, seemingly – but not certainly - a snapper, crashing into the reedbed. A 45-minute stake-out produced Purple Herons, both bee-eaters, Yellow Wagtail, Clamorous Reed and a Turkestan Shrike and two wonderfully spotty Jiffy-jiffies striding round on the fairways (Chris – take note, if you are still with us) but no crake. So that is tomorrow’s project, with reinforcements called and tapes ready. Would it be fair to say you’ll be joining me in hoping that, if it is a snapper, it isn’t a bloody Baillon’s, Nick?!

Total so far - 180 (102%)

Last additions – White-winged Tern, Hobby and Collared Pratincole (19^th September)

OSCAR