May 2014: best birding yet!

The first dark morph Montagu's Harrier in Scotland - my best find since moving to Lothian in 1994

Well it looks like May 2014 provided some of my best birding ever - and that's after about 40 years of birding to choose from! Here are some of the highlights... Pictures mainly from inland and upland Lothian and Fair Isle...

Rough-legged Buzzard - found while trying to re-locate the Monties!

Male Quail at Aberlady Bay - another find and my first ever view of the species rather than 'heard only record'

One of the highlights of the Fair Isle - awesome male 'Caspian' Siberian Stonechat

Re-finding the Hermit Thrush very early on its second day

Western Subalpine Warbler - another British tick for me on Fair Isle - took several days and a cat to locate it!

Fast declining even on Fair Isle - the Arctic Skua

Twite - even closer views in the hand for the whole group

Puffins a highlight of the Northern Isles trip for most of the group

A twitch for Avocets at Musselburgh was interrupted by this hunting Peregrine

Black Grouse were splendidly showy this month

A southern Golden Plover is presumably a local breeder

A brood of Red Grouse provided entertainment in the Lammermuirs

Although this Lapwing was far more cute

This Stoat killed a Rabbit right in front of me

Plenty of views of Redpolls - Common Redpolls in the Northern Isles and Lesser Redpolls like this one in Lothian

And, finally, gulls - my best hybrid candidate at Musselburgh - although it could be a pure LBBG (watch this space?)

Icelandic Redpoll

A year ago I was up on Fair Isle. Just like this holiday week I was treated to a week of northerly winds, although this year I have had the prospect of jury duty thrown in to keep me in Edinburgh. As a result I had to turn down Rich T's offer to join him on a quest to see Siberian Rubythroat on Shetland - hope that you are seeing it Rich. 

 

With northerlies, Fair Isle was a great place to see redpolls of a variety of forms, as previously blogged. The bird above is one that confused me a little at the time. I had already seen a couple of Hornemann's Arctic Redpolls (which I see have been accepted by BBRC as one bird, so maybe I should send my pics in to them), so it was clear that despite its massively white rump this bird was not in that camp. I was hoping to shoehorn it into the Coues' Arctic Redpoll phenotype but it is too brown for that particularly on the mantle and cheeks. Instead it seemed that the best diagnosis was a pale islandica an Icelandic Redpoll which is or is not synonymous with the Greenland Redpoll rostrata, depending on your point of view. Which are or may not be synonymous with Mealy Redpoll depending on your point of view. Which may or may not be synonymous with Lesser Redpoll... etc. Reading Martin Garner's recent blog posts on Icelandic Redpolls, it turns out it is a pretty rare form in the UK (thanks to the difficulties in establishing its identification and its validity as a form), so I thought I'd post a pic here. Actually, I think that most of the redpolls on Fair Isle last October week were probably islandica. I also suspect that a number of exilipes Arctic Redpolls recorded in the UK are likely to be birds of this form.

Northerlies are still the theme of the week this week, although looks like they are swinging east for the beginning of next week just in time for school starting up again. Looks like Peter R's trip up from North Wales to the East Lothian coast is going to be well timed - hope you find some goodies Peter.

A family walk today at Aberlady revealed a Little Egret, which is now almost expected at the site (how things change so rapidly!). Also first Fieldfares of autumn.

Likewise a Goosander at Alnwickhill has gone from near Mega to regular over the last few months.

We stopped at Ferny Ness to eat ice creams. Maybe there'll be some decent birds on the sea - maybe even Stephen W's Black-necked Grebe reported earlier. Sadly not, just a couple of tossers scaring the wildlife away. Yet more pressure on local biodiversity.

Fine views of Fair Isle Locustella

I popped into Blindwells, East Lothian, for the first time this evening. Just a quick 10 minute stroll but long enough to hear my first couple of reeling Grasshopper Warblers of the year. I must get out into the local patch over the next few days as this is a species that should be around, especially this year when so many seem to have been reported.

The last Grasshopper Warbler that I saw was on Fair Isle last October. It managed to briefly resemble both of its rarer relatives Lanceolated and Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler when it was seen initially, the former in this view which hides most of the bird's bulk, and the latter in flight as its tail was soaked so looked much darker than a Gropper's tail would normally. Ah well, I'll just have to find that pair on my local patch as well...

Here is a shot of the morphing warbler and a couple of other fine views of Fair Isle.

Winter buntings

Bird of the day on Sunday was a male Snow Bunting that was bombing around Musselburgh first thing in the morning. As soon as I heard the repeated 'teu' flight call I knew it was one of the winter buntings. As soon as I clapped eyes on its pied wings there was little doubt over which species this was.

On its second flypast the Snow Bunting added its second flight call - a 'trilidididid'. This call is quite different from the dry buzzy version of the call given by the Lapland Bunting. I was disappointed not to be able to nail the identification on the first call alone, especially given the ample opportunities for committing both to memory last autumn. Next time I'll be ready though as both of the calls of the Snow Bunting are more musical and pleasing to the ear.

Nov '11: Looking carefully at the above flight pic, it looks as if this individual is of the nivalis subspecies, given the extent of white in the wing.

I have now photographed both species in flight at Musselburgh this winter. Most shots end up looking like these two - as both species have a bounding flight pattern with the wings held in tightly against the body for most of the time. Snow Bunting on the left here and Lapland Bunting on the right.


 Maybe these shots do not show the species off to their best advantage, so here are a few more...

Here are Snow Buntings photographed at Barn's Ness in September and November 2010. This first photo is of the November bird and this appears to be one of the paler rumped Scandinavian subspecies nivalis, which although regular is apparently less common than the Icelandic insulae. Both subspecies breed in Scotland. Nov'11: The second bird is difficult to classify - probably insulae.

Finally, here is a Lapland Bunting photographed on Fair Isle in October. What a great autumn 2010 was for this species across much of Britain. I wonder whether there might be a surge of spring records this year as they move North(-West?). It is quite a few years since I found a male in breeding plumage on my old patch at Nercwys Mountain in North Wales, now that would be something to repeat.

Blue Monday

Today is the most depressing day of the year, or so the radio told me this morning. It is because it is the third Monday of the year apparently. Well, if that's true, wouldn't it be better to tell us all towards the end of the day, or even better have it as a good news story tomorrow - Headline: It's official!! All remaining days in year better than yesterday!

Birdwise they might have had a point as all I managed to glimpse in the garden today was a Woodpigeon and a Pheasant. Actually, the latter is a good bird in the garden but thinking about it that's pretty depressing if the avifauna of my garden is so poor that a category C1E species is a highlight...

So how to cheer up? If it is Blue Monday maybe some blue birds are the answer? After all, two species of blue birds were highlights for me in 2010.

The first, the Western Bluebird is the first of the Sialia bluebirds that I have managed to catch up with. This particular male was seen on our first full day in California in April. It is a jaw-dropping combination of vivid blue, orange, white and chestnut. Just one of those birds that is more mouthwatering in the field than in the field guide.

The female may be a little more subdued, but the male is so bright that it could only lift the spirits.

Oh, hang on, that habitat doesn't look very nice - a little off-putting with the barbed wire... And what is that little sign next to the picnic table. Oh, dear me, that's not very nice...

Well, ignore that blue bird, what about the other one. Fast forward to 16 October - I am on Fair Isle and happily photographing Mealy Redpolls in Tommy's garden at the Auld Haa when I get a shout - Red-flanked Bluetail on Ward Hill! Now I'm one of those non-twitching, low-listing birders who is quite happy to stare at a couple of Herring Gulls for a few hours, but the shout of RFB turned me into a raving twitcher ready to mow down any sheep that got in my way. After a red flag lift in the van up to the airport and then a near sprint up the side of Ward Hill to the area, all the birders on the island were assembled for that Fair Isle field craft technique - the mass flush! After some nerve-wracking minutes the bird gave up and sat for the next hour quivering (its tail) next to a rabbit hole. So absolutely amazing scope views of a RFB for a whole hour!

Here's my phonescoped pic. Oh, how come that picture is soooooo bad? Arghh, how depressing, it was there for a whole hour and that was the best I can do. Oh I can't believe I'm so bad at this. That must but the worst Red-flanked Bluetail picture on the whole web...

Lumping Lesser, Common and Arctic Redpolls

It has been a five year wait, but, at last, I happened to be outside when a Redpoll (shown below, not above!) decided to visit the garden. There have been several tantalising flyovers in the last few months, but today's bird was already in the birch tree. It was feeding unobtrusively and I only noticed it as I was adding to the compost heap right under the tree. In the ensuing scramble for the camera and contortions to achieve a camera angle I managed to slip on a decomposing Halloween pumpkin. Luckily the bird was settled... I took a series of shots as I established its identity as a Lesser Redpoll. This puts the garden list up to 69 species.

Of course, Redpoll taxonomy and identification is fraught and complex. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that the closest relatives of the Redpolls are the Crossbills! Like that group subtle structural and morphological differences are used for segregation. In the case of the Redpolls into five (or six) recognisable(ish) forms: the Lesser Redpoll cabaret; the Common/Mealy Redpoll flammea; the North-western/Greenland/Icelandic Redpoll rostrata (often classified within flammea and may or may not include yet another form the very variable islandica which may or may not be shown in the photograph below); the Hoary/Scandinavian Arctic Redpoll exilipes; and Hornemann's Arctic/Greenland Arctic Redpoll hornemanni. And of course, other than 'classic' individuals of each form, many individual birds cannot easily or confidently be placed into one group rather than another.

If you found that paragraph complex then there is some good news. The most recent mtDNA study has found insufficient genetic evidence for the subdivision of the Redpoll group. Instead the evidence indicates that the three species that birders are used to considering at the moment (Lesser Redpoll (cabaret), Common Redpoll (flammea, rostrata, islandica) and Arctic Redpoll (exilipes, hornemanni) should be lumped into one species - presumably: The Redpoll.

Of course variation does exist within the Redpoll. It has been suggested that two well-known factors may be responsible for the variation in form of Redpolls. First, Bergmann's Rule describes the increase of size of individuals of a species with reduced temperatures. Second, Gloger's Rule descibes the increase in darkness of plumage with increase in humidity. So, these two observations would predict that the Redpolls living in western Europe would be darker, those in drier areas (such as in frozen landscapes) would be paler, those in the colder north would be larger and those living further south would be smaller.

So the bird on the left photographed on Fair Isle in October of this year may be a Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll or may be a Redpoll from a population that has evolved in a cold and dry environment.

On the other hand, it has also been suggested that these populations of Redpolls are incipient species that just have not had enough time to build up any significant genetic differences between one another.

Either way, the phenotype variation is real whether it is useful or not in assigning individual birds to genetic groups. So with that in mind, here is a selection of photographs that I took on Fair Isle in October of this year when good numbers of 'Mealy Redpoll' of a variety of plumages were present along with small numbers of 'Lesser Redpoll' and 'Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll'. It is possible that some of the Mealy-types are islandica.



Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll
 

Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll (with Mealy Redpoll)

 

Mealy Redpolls

 

Mealy (left) and Lesser (right) Redpolls, or maybe they are both islandica?

Mealy Redpolls islandica?