An elusive paddy at Pagham Harbour

Today I was persuaded to go to Pagham to see the paddyfield warbler with David and his friend, Alex. We had a good run down after lunch. Well, during lunch really, and I forgot my lunch on the kitchen table so David kindly gave me one of his sarnies. Thanks, David.

Had to wait an hour or so for fairly fleeting glimpses of the said paddyfield warbler, a bird more at home in the far east. Then it showed again, flitting quickly in and out of the reeds. It didn't sit still for a second and it was very hard to get a shot of it. Here is the record picture:

Paddyfield warbler.

 As the sun faded it got very cold and we headed for home. It was a lifer! I just wish it had shown a little bettter though. On the other hand the weather was splendid!

Brief trip to Gibraltar - one or two highlights

Lynne wanted to get away for half term so she booked us on a short break to 'the Rock'. It was pretty cold. Colder than Lynne was expecting! It wasn't a birdwatching holiday as such, . .  but where can you not see birds? Took my zoom lens as it's more portable.

There weren't a lot of birds about. On the first day we went to the Southern tip of Gibraltar, called Europa Point. There were a few gannets fishing as well as the ubiquitous yellow-legged gulls. There were a fair number of black redstarts, but no raptors at all!

At Europa point. A very windy place.

On day 2 we went round the museum, which was quite interesting. There is a large-scale model of the Rock, about 10 metres long. The real Rock is quite high at over 400 metres so the uplift for migrating birds must be fantastic. In the botanical gardens I watched the chiffchaffs on the flowers as well as the black redstarts. Lynne saw a hoopoe but I was too slow.

In the Botanical Gardens.

In the Botanical Gardens.

Chiffchaff

Black redstart - male

We went on a tour of the Rock with two women from the UK. They were great fun. Here's Lynne and one of them with the driver, Joe.


Lynne, Joe and Bev

St Michaels cave was spectacular for it's amazing Stactites and stalagmites. They even hold concerts sometimes in the large chamber.

St Michael's cave

The concert hall in St Michael's cave.

The Great Siege tunnels were also good. There were good views towards Spain.

North towards Spain from the siege tunnels.

Lynne in the siege tunnels.

At a fountain in the gardens birds came to drink at the end of the day when it was getting dark. One of them looked like a starling I had never seen! Dark plain plumage. No spots at all. It had to be a spotless starling, a lifer! I took a picture and I've put it below despite the damage it will do to my photographic reputation! It was near sunset, inside a dark garden and handheld. Not the best recipe for a good picture. Well, it is just recognisable as a male spotless starling I think.

Spotless starling

Lynne and I wandered on. I heard an unfamiliar call behind me. When I looked, a sardinian warbler was moving through the trees and quickly went out of sight before I could photograph it. Dohhh!

We went to the nearby Rock hotel and had a glass of Cava while enjoying the free WiFi to check our emails (that's sad isn't it?). We met another guy who was a bird photographer. He had the same camera and lens as I did. He had some photos of the sardinian warbler. Nice. He told me the best place to see them.

The Rock hotel where we often went for afternoon tea . . .

. . . . or a glass of cava!

Next day we went up the cable car and the weather was very clear. Still very cold mind you. I took some flight shots of the yellow-legged gulls wheeling overhead.

The Barbary monkeys spent a lot of time looking for fleas!

View from the top.

Another from the top. Our hotel is the large building near the
tree line, above the date stamp.

Looking North towards Spain along the ridge of the Rock.

Not sure where the sentry was.

Yellow-legged gull - underside

Yellow-legged gull - upper wings

We decided to stroll down to the half-way station and pick up the cable car on the way down. We had nearly arrived when two young women told us of an interesting line of caterpillars on the road. They showed us and we were astonished to find a perfect line of pine processional caterpillars, one following the other in close formation. There were 87 caterpillars in a row! It's actually a moth which attacks pine trees so it's not that welcome.

Pine processional moth caterpillar - there were 87!!

Pine processional moth caterpillar

We suddenly realised that we only had a few minutes to the last cable car down. We ran and ran and just got to it in time! Phew!

Once down, I went to look for the Sardinian warblers and I found one just where the chap had said. Managed to get some shots without disturbing it.

Sardinian warbler

Sardinian warbler -drinking the nectar.

On the last day I went looking for the spotless starlings but no luck. In a cemetery just before sunset, a couple of pipistrelle bats were flying around for insects. The sun had already gone down, so I had to increase the ISO to 6400 for these shots. The bats flew very quickly and erratically. Autofocus was out of the question. I focused on a tree at what I thought was the same distance the bats would be. I took a couple of hundred shots. From all of those, a few were recognisable. This is one of them.

Pipistrelle bat.

Redwings and redbreasts

Had a brief outing today with Mark Stanley to Chipstead station where there were variable numbers of redwing and a few fieldfares. It was cold but with little wind so the snow and ice didn't freeze me too much.

These pictures were taken outside the 'Simply Delicious' cafe, where the rowan berries attracted these winter thrushes. A robin also put in an appearance.

Redwing

Redwing

Robin

Seeds produce a good harvest.

David and I went again to Hampshire this week for the Spanish sparrow. We left early and arrived just before dawn. The bird was in someone's garden. It seemed too early on a Sunday morning to expect them to let people in so we went first to the dark-eyed junko a few miles away. I put some seed down on a tree stump a few metres away. Eventually, the junco landed nearby and climbed onto it to feed. Good views were had by all!

Dark-eyed junco. An American bird

After that we went to see the Spanish sparrow (which I had seen in Israel). As luck would have it, the house-owners were both birdwatchers. We took our shoes off and joined those already inside. I was able to sit by the patio doors and soon the Spanish sparrow appeared. It seemed happy among the British sparrows and had, apparently, bred with the locals. Remember that these pictures were taken through double glazing.

Spanish sparrow (male) taken through double glazing.

After that we went to Blashford lakes for the ferruginous duck and then to Wyke Regis, Weymouth for Hume's leaf warbler. We dipped both again so the less said about that the better. In compensation, it was nice to see redpoll, siskin and goldfinch all on the same feeder at Blashford, and about 400 Mediterranean gulls and a young kestrel at Wyke Regis.

Redpoll

Song thrush

Siskins (male)

Kestrel - (male)

Thanks, David, for your company.

The Gambia Birds A - E

The Gambia – 11-25 November 2011

Note: This is a long blog in 4 parts. Navigate with links below:

Other parts:

PART 2 Birds F - O for falcons, gulls, herons, kingfishers, etc.

PART 3 Birds P - S for rollers, snake-eagles, starlings, sunbirds, etc.

PART 4 Birds T - Z for terns, warblers, vultures, etc.

The Gambia has been a destination I’ve wanted to visit for some time and I wasn’t disappointed.

I left Gatwick on a not so cold November day and, after a 6-hour flight, arrived to temperatures of 38°C. The plane was a little late so we did no afternoon birdwatching and went straight to our rooms to freshen up before dinner. There's no time difference, which was handy. No jet lag.

The Kombo Beach hotel was nice. We were led to believe that air-conditioning wasn’t included but I was pleased to find that it was. The food was good, always a buffet, and the atmosphere welcoming. It was to be our base for 8 days.

The Gambia is the smallest African country, completely surrounded by Senegal. It’s long and narrow, being merely the banks of the river Gambia, a major river in West Africa. The Gambia is over 300km long but only about 40km wide on average. There is a good main road on the North bank and a not-so-good main road on the South bank. Off the main roads, the going is slow, on soft sandy tracks. Nevertheless, in the main, getting around was OK.

I won’t bore you with a blow by blow account of all the places we visited at or near the coast. We visited a range of habitats and saw a vast range of birds. The trip total for 2 weeks was 324 birds but I saw 311. Either figure is more than my current British life list!! Over 200 birds were ones I hadn’t seen before. Imagine seeing your British list in 2 weeks!

The first day was phenomenal. Over 50 lifers in one day! I was mainly interested in the photography, so I tried to photograph everything. I got reasonable shots of about 200 birds and poor or record shots of another 30 or so. We saw all 9 species of kingfisher and I photographed 8 of them. Only the shining blue kingfisher eluded me. There were 4 species of roller, 16 species of heron/egret, 7 of woodpecker, 11 cisticolas, 11 hirundines as well as large groups of sunbirds, shrikes, weavers and warblers. Raptors were common and I saw 29 species.

At breakfast in the hotel I could admire a constant stream of kites and vultures overhead. Breakfast was early; around 6.30 so we could leave at 7.15. By 13.00 it was too hot to be out. We generally lunched and rested till about 15.30, although some mad dogs or Englishmen went out in the heat!

The bus was ancient with no air-conditioning. The driver, Aladdin, was good. Organisation was well thought out. After we had been dropped off we would walk through a forest, say, and the bus would be waiting for us on the other side.

The Gambian people are very friendly and the place feels safe. Around the hotels there are the usual touristy people offering you taxis, money-changing and more, but they generally left you alone when they saw you weren’t interested.

Our two local guides were Solomon and Abdulai. They knew the areas and where the birds were. They were both excellent at locating birds by call alone so they could then be found and seen.

Vaughan Ashby, the English guide (and owner of Birdfinders) was also excellent at picking up birds from call or sight, giving an almost instant identification. It is testament to his knowledge and experience that he had no lifers at all on the trip.

After 8 nights at the coast we set off for Georgetown about 150km up river. This was much more basic accommodation but the birds were good. No air conditioning here!

After 2 nights we left on a river boat trip where we slowly drifted near to the river banks. Birds were much less afraid of us in a boat. After lunch we set off in the bus for Tendaba camp. This was quite a large camp. The highlight was the boat trip up one of the meandering mangrove creeks where we saw African blue-flycatcher, golden-tailed woodpecker and several species of bee-eater.

Whilst up river we paid a visit to a local school to deliver pens, pencils and other stationery items which we had brought from England. The principal of the school greeted us and we met one of the classes. Both Vaughan and Solomon spoke about the importance of preserving Gambia’s bird and wildlife.

It was not possible for everyone to see everything. With 16 in the group plus 3 permanent guides and one trainee it was difficult sometimes on the narrower forest tracks to assemble everyone in one place to see a shy bird in the thickest parts of the forest or a bird that was small and lived in the high forest canopy. Notwithstanding this, the team did their very best to ensure that everyone saw the birds. Personally, I’m very happy with what I saw and photographed. Photographers are not always welcomed by other birdwatchers. I apologise now to my fellow team members if I inadvertently got in their way sometimes.

The photos following are in alphabetical order. Click on a photo to see a larger version. I have left out typical UK migrants as these will be familiar to most readers. I’m working on a full list of species seen and I will post it here as soon as I’ve worked out how to do it. As there are a lot of photos I will have to split them up and post them over four or five pages. Here are A-E.

Anteater chat - Northern

Apalis - yellow breasted. A forest dweller. Hard to see.

Babbler - blackcap

Babbler - brown

Barbet - bearded. What a strange bird.

Barbet - Viellots

Bateleur - adult. Not common.

Bateleur - juvenile came to check us out.

Batis - Senegal

Bee-eater - blue-cheeked

Bee-eater - European. Never seen one in UK.

Bee-eater - little

Bee-eater - Northern Carmine

Bee-eater - red-throated. Saw a colony of perhaps 500 pairs in disused quarry.

Bee-eater - swallow-tailed. A very elegant bird, as are all the bee-eaters.

Bee-eater - white-throated

Bishop - black-winged

Bishop - orange (Northern red)

Bulbul - common

Bunting - brown-rumped. Should be called 'stripey-faced yellow bunting'!

Bunting - cinnamon-breasted (aka African rock bunting)

Bunting - house.

Buzzard - lizard. Quite common all over.

Cameroptera - grey-backed. More often heard than seen.

Chat - white-fronted black. No white front 'cos this is a female.

Cisticola - rufous. All the cisticolas are quite plain.

Cisticola - singing.

Cisticola - zitting. This is the one we sometimes see.

Cordonbleu - red-cheeked.

Cormorant - long-tailed. Often very pale fronted.

Coucal - Senegal. Many birds are called 'Senegal'. Gambia is surrounded by Senegal.

Crow - pied. Crows sound and fly the same the world over.

Cuckoo - Klaas's. Seen once only.

Cuckoo - Levaillant's. reasonably common.

Cuckoo - Levaillant's.

Cuckoo-shrike - red-shouldered. Had some strange red patches like small wings
that could be raised and lowered. See next photo.

Cuckoo-shrike - red-shouldered, with shoulder patches raised.

Cut-throat. No idea why this bird is so called, ha, ha.

Darter - African. Common in the mangroves.

Dove - namaqua. Male, right, and female

Dove - red-eyed. Ubiquitous.

Dove - vinaceous. Also very common.

Drongo - fork-tailed

Duck - white-faced whistling. Yes, you've seen these at WWT.

Eagle - Whalbergs. Note the narrow straight tail.

Eagle-owl - Verreauxs. A huge bird. Usually, locals were
paid if they knew which trees owls were roosting in.

Egret - cattle. All over the place. Nice though.

Egret - great white. We got quite close to these on the river trips.

Egret - intermediate.  A new one for me. What is the sure-fire
way to distinguish it from the great white?

Eremomula - Senegal.

The next part:

PART 2   Birds F - O   for falcons, gulls, herons, kingfishers, etc.