Duck invasion

A few extra gulls at Ynys-y-fro this afternoon but the highlights were all wildfowl with one Shoveler, six Wigeon and 11 Teal; no Water Rail, Lapwing or Snipe though and nothing moving overhead.

Welcome to the 1000th post

This afternoon's jaunt did nothing to help this landmark blogpost stand out from the usual flow of unpolished turdery on offer here. The snow-flattened reedbeds, etc., at Uskmouth produced: a redhead Goosander heading down-channel towards the mouth of the Usk, 11 Turnstone on the foreshore, 2 Stonechat, decent numbers of Redwing and Song Thrush, a few Water Rail, Snipe, Skylark and Cetti's Warbler, and 2 Bearded Tit dotting about by the centre. Oh, and a rat,...

A frizz Brown Rat on the edge of the saltmarsh wondering why he isn't on some tropical island scoffing endemic seabirds' eggs.

On returning home, and anticipating all manner of congratulatory messages on reaching the milestone of 1000 blogposts, I checked the Gwent Birding electronic mailbox only to find it full to overflowing with two e-mail messages, the first is from a Mrs. Ointment of North Gwent. She informs me that she is now 'on the net' with her first PC. She writes:

Dear Pamela,
Blog wonderful a. For thanks many.
Faithfully yours, (GOS, RSPB, WI) Ointment Margaret Mrs. Qwerty hatstand ^.chilblain.UK
PS Which way does the keyboard go?

The second electronic missive, from a Mr. Rylands of Devon, largely took the form of a screenshot from the NHBS 'Backlist Bargains' sale (see below) and seems to suggest the guys at the aforementioned purveyors of fine natural history literature may rate Gwent almost as highly as I do.

Ha!

Now you don't see that everyday

Following a much appreciated tip-off from CC up-country, I jammed in on the edge of a bit of weather movement today. Two hours sitting at an open upstairs window produced: 130 finches, 230 thrushes, 40 Skylark and, largely due to them frequenting the low-slung bottoms of various distant snow clouds, 135 bird sp. And then I went out to play in the white stuff,...

To appreciate this magical view, you'll need to click on the picture to view the larger version. 

The neat rows of Quimcum, a village in which every female inhabitant is named Ann and where, by local decree (and on pain of death), nobody is allowed to set their clocks to the correct time.  Once thought purely fictitious, the product of frostbitten travellers' exhausted minds, the village was finally photographed in 1934 by the Reverend Robert Schlock who unfortunately, despite multiple attempts prior to his untimely death in 1938, failed to relocate it.  Of course, it is now known only to appear following heavy snowfall.  The foremost landmark is the Quimcum Hotel sitting, as it does, in a dominant position overlooking the main crossroads (centre-right); whilst it looks welcoming and, indeed, advertises rooms half board for £39.50, the vast majority of weary excursionists are dismayed when, on arrival, they realise it measures, from ground to gable, just five British inches.

Up-country, down-country

Started the day with a trip up to Monmouth, Redbrook and Whitebrook. Nothing too exciting along the Wye between the two brooks but at least the woodland alongside chipped in Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and Marsh Tit. Then, it was back towards Monmouth to count the Common Gulls, back home for a late lunch, and then down to Ynys-y-fro to confirm it still isn't a mecca for Goosanders,... it isn't.

Ynys-y-fro does look quite good at the moment though, the lower basin is basically empty and resembles a mini inland estuary. Unfortunately, the only birds attracted in so far are, rather predictably, mini inland waders, sometimes called Pied Wagtails, 25 of which pottered about on the mud. It may produce something more exciting at some point,... especially if the plan to refill it in March is delayed. Let's hope they misplace the plug.

Chimera, Cerberus, Hydra, Aythya

Male Tufted x Ferruginous Duck hybrid,... in the dark,... through a telescope,... with a knackered old Coolpix. The good ol' faithful female Pochard hybrid was also present in the same flockette of aythya just down in front of the hide at Uskmouth. Quick! Get down there!

Little bit queasy?

Spent a couple of hours pottering around the hedgerows and fields of Penmaen Farm, as with most of my forays up-country, it produced nothing more exciting than a Woodcock and a few Siskin.

On my return, the interweb offered up a picture of the patch (upon which I should have been pottering) that gives it the look of a sad, sickly Panda, or one of those silly buggers off the Corsa adverts. Not a totally wasted day then.

Rather eerily, the patch appears to be mocking me via mimicry; this is an uncanny impression of my facial expression at the end of most visits.

That holiday snap

Dinas Head, The Bull and Quies through a glass, even more darkly.

Top tips for the care and use of external hard drives: 1. keep them away from the sun to avoid faded jpegs; and 2. don't shake them or stick a pen inside when trying to extract large files as the pictures may get folded and/or scratched. 

Momentarily, I saw colours

A fleeting moment of not-hoying-down in Steinsville, during which a Black-necked Grebe performed in the harbour entrance. Moments later it came to my attention that my girlfriend's car's battery had developed a fault, information relayed in the form of a clicking starter button and underlined with a £150 bill from the RAC for the joy of being temporarily stranded in north Cornwall.  Being the eternal opportunists that we are, Jack and I snuck off down the Camel Trail and found ourselves a couple of Firecrests in the now expected, and therefore strangely comforting, wind and rain. 

An hour later we were off but, before achieving the A30 and its black-topped, multi-laned promise of civilisation, a Corn managed to barrel round a blind bend and destroy our driver's side (rather expensive) motorised wing-mirror assembly before disappearing from our perfectly undamaged rear view mirror in his shitty, murk-coloured Ford Focus. Despite leaping from the car and legging it back up the road, this second moment of car-related mishappedness did not produce Firecrest or, indeed, any other pretty little scarcy.

Carbis, Hayle, Godrevy, Sennacherib

A morning peering over the placid waters of Carbis Bay and touring the Hayle produced 3-4 Mediterranean Shearwaters, 4 Great Northern Divers and Slavonian Grebe, ably supported by 7 Mediterranean Gulls, 3 Goosander and a Greenshank; all under relatively benign skies. However, an afternoon jaunt to Godrevy Point, proved a red rag to the bullish meteorological gods. The Gannets spread their wings on the icy blast, the chill spray of the rock-beating surf salted the earth, marauding bands of rain came down like wolves on the fold,... and there lay the birder distorted and cold.

Angels of death feeding frenzy or some such thing or other. 

This pretty much sums up the weather for the whole trip, it's times like this when you just have to set your face to the wind, grit your teeth, jump in the car and go home.

Cry 'tristis' and let slip the dogs of war

Kenidjack sewage works, Kenidjack Valley, Cornwall; 27th December 2012. A Chiffchaff cornucopia,...

Images 1-4, bird A: overall pale and very cold-toned, all greyish-browns and frosty off-white (further accentuated in this image by the contra lighting and the high ISO and colour noise reduction settings, all of which tend to desaturate the image slightly); the only green/yellow tones are on the edges of the remiges/rectrices and a hint at the alula; the pallor of the crown emphasizes the short dark lateral forecrown stripe which extends to just behind the eye; paleness on the bare parts is restricted to the cutting edges of the upper mandible and the feet.

Images 5-6, birds A and B (bird B on the right in image 5, left in image 6): bird B showed slightly more warm ochrous/ochrous-buff tones on the ear-coverts and breast sides than bird A but was still a strikingly greyish-brown individual; both birds showed obvious wingbars due to pale-tipped greater coverts. One of these birds uttered a monosyllabic tristis-type 'peep' twice in quick succession during my initial sighting, however, none of the Chiffchaffs were calling with any regularity, and neither were heard to call subsequently despite observations spanning two and a half blustery hours.

Image 7, bird B: taken from the opposite side of the sewage works compound, i.e. 'with the light', and at a slightly lower ISO setting, note the difference in saturation/plumage tones as compared to images 5-6; this image probably shows the 'truest' impression of bird B's plumage, with bird A being slightly greyer/colder again. Having only heard one of the two birds call, I would only claim one as tristis but, were I local, I'd keep going back until I'd nailed the calls of both,... 'cos I'd be surprised if the second bird didn't go 'peep' too.

Images 8-10: three increasingly yellow/green toned individuals (there were several others knocking around); the bird in image 8 shows a greyer crown and nape, a reasonably obvious lateral forecrown stripe, and ochre washed ear coverts; whilst the bird in image 10 had lots of yellow in the supercilium and an extensive pale lower mandible. Wouldn't it be nice to pop the bird in image 7 in the abietinus box and 9-10 in the collybita pigeonhole, everything would be so neat and tidy then.