Back to the patch

A half decent flock of finches continues to inhabit the game crop. Ten Brambling were knocking around amongst the hordes of Chaffinch and Greenfinch, with smaller numbers of Linnet, Goldfinch, Reed Bunting and House Sparrow also tucking into the sunflowers, etc. At the other end of the reserve, three Bewick's were still sitting on Lagoon 3 when I bowled up at lunchtime, but flew off low NE at 14:40. Depending on where you come from, the photo below is entitled either zwergschwan mit schafe or schafe mit zwergschwan, take your pick.

The great crossbill hunt

A couple of days in Wentwood resulted in getting a series of type 1 flight calls on 'tape' (see below); just need to bag the excitement calls now. Also managed to get top quality recordings of wheezing middle-aged blokes on mountain bikes, the banging tunes emanating from a poxy little red Corsa and the shuffling around of two members of the local constabulary wondering where a nice new pile of fly-tipped car parts had come from.

Back in blighty

Back home and the last week has produced such gripping highlights as: a couple of pairs of Willow Tits, 800+ Woodpigeon west in ten minutes, and a few Siskins and Lesser Redpolls. South Wales - the ornithological slough of despond.

An Azores first!

Bump, the 1960s vintage military transport plane arrived in Terceira. Two hours of daylight remained and, thanks to the most efficient baggage retrieval, airport evacuation and taxi hijacking yet performed, we (myself, Vincent and David) spent over an hour of it at the mighty Cabo da Praia. Whilst the paparazzi chased the Laughing Gull, I scanned the waders and soon stumbled onto a small, dull-axilleried, short-winged pluvialis. Having fought off the initial disbelief, I cautiously uttered "I think I might have a Pacific here". All three of us then grilled the bird and slowly (oh, so slowly) became more and more confident as the gloom became more and more impenetrable. I also took this opportunity to obtain some of the worst photos and video of any bird ever (some of which I present here, see/squint below).

If you listen very, very carefully the bird calls right at the end of the clip, seemingly in response to a Semi-palmated Plover, it appears to utter a very similar 'chew-it'.

My last full day on here

What a way to finish! Spent three hours caning some distant valley with no reward but, on the way back down the track, we walked straight up to a Common Nighthawk and, due to the increasingly dense fog, almost straight past it (thank God for mobbing Chaffinches). Pandemonium ensued, eventually everybody got outrageous views before the bird had enough, flew around a couple of times, and settled on a nearby wall. An absolutely unmissable and unforgettable birding experience.

Seawatching

Woke up to blustery south-easterlies and decided against flogging oneself in the valleys. Seawatching and sauntering between fields and fig groves was the order of the day. Seawatching produced next to nothing beyond the usual doughnut of cagarro that encircles this rock (see pic). On a positive note, further views today may mean we have gained an additional Tree Swallow and yet another Yellow-billed Cuckoo.

Oh dear

Having shunned Grey-cheeked Thrush, Indigo Bunting, Tree Swallow, Corncrake, etc. today. I ended up going for a bit of actitis action on the beach but only ended up with crabs (Oh,... and a Whimbrel).

Eradicate them all

Cuckoo Killer
Qu'est-ce que c'est?
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away



Probably the biggest threat to any rarity on these islands, shudder to think what their impact is on the breeding seabirds.

They keep coming

So far, I haven't spent a day on Corvo that didn't produce a new American bird, today was no different with top-billing going to an additional Indigo Bunting and a Grey-cheeked Thrush. The two buntings are now hanging around together, showing down to less than 4m and the male has even been heard to sing. The thrush, on the other hand, has been a usual bastard catharus, showing for seconds at most and often only in flight. Given the aforementioned, it will come as no surprise which species is featured in the photo below.

Last year Summer this year...

On 26th October 2006 I co-found a Summer Tanager on Corvo, today I managed to stumble across a Scarlet, only two people can claim to have found both in the WP and I'm one of them,... nice. The magic moment went a bit like this:

Bird: pwee, pwee (high-pitched and rather irate due to presence of annoyed Blackcap whose figs the tanager is trying to scoff).
Me (turning to my right and seeing a tanager): Jesus titty-f**king Christ!
Bird: (flies to next fig 'orchard').
Me (on radio): Tanager! I've got a Summer Tanager! (SIC!)
Bird: (starts tucking into a fig whilst harrassed by Blackcap, see pic below).
Me: No, tanager sp., shit! (much ensuing panic as Pete arrives, photos are grabbed and various garbled directions are sent in at least three languages to get everyone else to the site).

As the adrenaline subsided, we realised it was, as belatedly suspected, a Scarlet (luckily well before any other f***er had seen it and re-identified it).

Other highlights are another view of the Tree Swallow, three Yellow-billed Cuckoos (including two sat beside one another) and a Spoonbill (Azores tick, yay!).


Hello, there are at least six of me on the Azores at the mo.