Shetland days

 My little Shetland Pony

Life can be a beach 

Views of Shetland

In transit....

A male Northern Wheatear (Russell F Spencer)

I'm sitting here in an airport lounge at Aberdeen Airport on my way to Shetland - a mythical destination that I have never been to before but have always lusted after since my monstrous Dixon's 10 x 50  wielding days. The sky is a glorious blue. Thank good that Aberdeen is also experiencing the recent  tropical weather that the rest of Britain has been basking in.

A couple of days ago I spent an interesting afternoon at Wormwood Scrubs, my patch. The sun was beating down and seeing as I was to have a radio interview on site later in the afternoon I decided to spend an hour sitting on an anthill in the grassland scanning for passing raptors. Well, despite my best efforts I managed one Sparrowhawk, a couple of Cormorants and a host of Herring & Lesser Black-back Gulls. Scanning the grassland I noticed that a topless man was reclining in the grass around 200 yards away. This would have been fine had it not been that he had chosen to sunbath in the protected area for ground nesting birds. Riled I got up and started to approach the guy. But instead of making a direct beeline across the grassland and potentially disturbing the very birds that I was about to berate him about, I decided to take the long way round to him by using the path.

I must have walked 10 yards when I noticed a handsome male Northern Wheatear strolling away from me on the same path. What an absolutely gorgeous bird it was. My statistical mind started to whirr. Was this the latest bird ever at The Scrubs? I suddenly realised that it was. The previous latest was recorded on the 20th May 2008. I marvelled at its finery as it flew on top of a nearby Blackthorn. Time ran away with me. I suddenly remembered the reason for my ramble and simultaniously also realised that it was time to meet the reporter. The topless man got away with being topless in the wrong place.

But I'll get him next time!

Avistar 2012

I've recently had a fabulous few days in Sao Paulo, Brazil. My mission was to be keynote speaker at the Avistar 2012 - an annual Brazilian birdfair organised by Brazilian ornithologist, Guto Carvalho. I met a host of fantastic conservationists including the wonderful Martha Argel and Betty Petersen who took me under her wing.

Seeing as winter was rapidly approaching the birding wasn't as great as it could have been. so for those who like lists I have compiled all the species that I saw or heard during my four day flying visit.

I shall return!

A view of Sao Paulo & below TUB with American Bird Association's Betty Petersen

TUB with Anelisa Magalhaes

TUB with Martha Argel

TUB with AVISTAR organisor Guto Carvalho

A view from an urban park

Urban birding in Sao Paulo

Checking for a Rufous-browed Peppershrike

Those pink things are actually Scarlet Ibises!

I need a proper camera!

Magnificent Frigatebird

Neotropic Cormorant

White-necked Heron

Great Egret

Little Blue Heron

Snowy Egret

Cattle Egret

Striated Heron

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

Black-crowned Night Heron

White-faced Whistling Duck

White-cheeked Pintail

Scarlet Ibis

Roseate Spoonbill

Turkey Vulture

Black Vulture

Osprey

Roadside Hawk

Short-tailed Hawk

Southern Caracara

Yellow-headed Caracara

American Kestrel

Common Moorhen

Southern Lapwing

Semipamated Plover

Greater Yellowlegs

Kelp Gull

Royal Tern

‘Cayenne’ Tern

Black Skimmer

Feral Pigeon

Picazuro Pigeon

Ruddy Ground Dove

Blue-winged Parrotlet

Plain Parakeet

Squirrel Cuckoo

Smooth-billed Ani

Burrowing Owl

White-collared Swift

Sapphire-spangled Emerald

Ringed Kingfisher

Amazon Kingfisher

Green Kingfisher

White-spotted Woodpecker

Narrow-billed Woodcreeper

Rufous Hornero

Yellow-olive Flycatcher

Masked Water Tyrant

Short-crested Flycatcher

Great Kiskadee

Tropical Kingbird

White-rumped Swallow

Blue-and white Swallow

Southern House Wren

Chalk-browed Mockingbird

Rufous-bellied Thrush

Pale-breasted Thrush

Rufous-collared Sparrow

Saffron Finch

Brazilian Tanager

Sayaca Tanagar

Banaquit

Bicoloured Conebil

Golden-crowned Warbler

Rufous-browed Peppershrike

Epaulet Oriole

Shiny Cowbird

A quiet day in Sao Paulo

 Pale-breasted Thrush (Rick & Elis Simpson)

Rufous Hornero (Rick & Elis Simpson)

My keynote speech that I wrote whilst delivering it went down a storm at Avistar 2012. My translater and I worked in complete harmony.

Quiet day otherwise. Did very little birding apart from looking around the park where the birdfair was based. I was rewarded with a view of my first ever Southern Caracara as it flapped overhead. I saw just one Pale-breasted Thrush yesterday but the Rufous Hornero were pleasingly common. They were a mix between a Starling and Nightingale (the rufous tail) when walking about on the grass but flew like a woodpecker. Curious.

Avistar 2012

Burrowing Owl (D. Fettes)

Just got back to my hotel room after attending the opening of the Avistar 2012 Brazil Bird Fair. Held in a classy auditorium close to the fair venue I must say that I was taken by the professionalism displayed by organisor Guto Carvalho and his team. It wasn't just straight presentations illustrated by images of birds, oh, no. There was a blind man who came on stage with his guide dog to present a superb soundscape that he had recorded. A woman came on and proceeded to get the audience to imitate bird calls. Plus, another fella came on an presented his film on the scenery around the Atlantic forests accompanied by a live seven piece orchestra. Impressive. The only downer for me was that the entire night was conducted in Portuguese.

I arrived in Sao Paulo, a tired migrant, at 7.30am after a knackering 11.5 hour flight. Any birding was restricted to the park in which the fair was being held. Had a few new species including Rufous-bellied Thrush, a species that looked like a bulky female Blackbird but with a delightful ruddy wash on its undercarriage. Later, before going to the opening, I took a short walk around the corner from my hotel to explore Sao Paulo University Campus. There were a few good urban birds here including plentiful Southern Lapwings that littered the mown grass. I also discovered a lone Burrowing Owl as it tried act cool standing on a rock with an eye trained on a bunch of students that unwittingly sat very close nearby.

Time to write my speech for the start of the fair tomorrow. Goodbye. 

Prolonged winter

I read the depressing news yesterday that Britain is going to be variously shivering and soaking until mid-June. What a brilliant summer we're having!

I mooched around The Scrubs this morning at 6am in the vain hope that the ominous dark clouds that were swiftly moving in from the west were not going to envelope the relatively clear sky that was above my head. I had hoped that they would have retreated to whence they came. But instead they advanced. I watched a Spotted Flycatcher that I had just discovered sitting in a bush. It seemed to shudder as the first spots of icey rain fell.

Welcome to Britain Mr Flycatcher!

Oh SH1T!!!

All images courtesy of Susan Sammons

We've had a fantastic couple of weeks at The Scrubs that has involved the discovery of great birds like Northern Wheatear, Common Redstart, Ring Ouzel, a Whimbrel feeding on the football pitches and a wayward Common Sandpiper. We had high hopes for the discovery of another great bird yesterday during the London Natural History Society bird walk that I was leading.

Nearly 50 people showed up on one of the nicest days of the year. The sun was absolutely beaming down. I instructed the group from the outset to be on big bird alert as conditions seemed favourable for a passing raptor. We were walking across the football pitches as I waxed lyrical about the importance of looking up when birding when I looked up and immediately saw a white-winged gull soaring high overhead with an accompanying Herring Gull. My heart raced as I shouted out 'Iceland Gull!' It looked like one to me apart from a slight niggle. For a second I thought that its head and beak looked too rugged for an Iceland. It just didn't feel gentle enough. I dismissed that doubt in a heartbeat  and instead asked for anyone one in the group with a camera to start popping off some shots.

I was still celebrating the first Iceland Gull for the patch a few hours later when I recieved a text from my mate James Lowen. He asked me to consider the possibility of it being a leucistic Herring Gull. Alarm bells started to ring at full volume. Apparently, there is a leucistic bird that bears the ring SH1T that was originally controlled by the North London Ringing Group and has been doing the rounds at various sites both inside and outside London like Rainham Marshes and Beddington Farm. It has been leaving many confused folk in its wake and now it looks as though I have been added to the 'Fake Iceland Gull Club'. Looking at the photographs you can see that the bird has a very typical Herring Gull structure and my Larid loving peers tell me that the wear on the primaries were not befitting those of a genuine Iceland Gull.

Ah well, we're on 85 species for the year at The Scrubs thus far. Number 86 will have to come from elsewhere.

West by southeast

Asian Glossy Starling (D. Fettes)

I've been back in the UK for four days since coming back from Taiwan. I hit the ground running with wall to wall writing deadlines, talk designing and meetings. I managed to spend some quality time at The Scrubs, but more about that tomorrow, especially seeing that I am leading a London Natural History Society walk there tomorrow morning.

Anyway, I have had a few requests for a species list of the birds I saw whilst in Taiwan. For those of a less listy disposition please look away now:

[denotes an escaped species]
((denotes heard))

Dabchick

[Sacred Ibis]

Black-faced Spoonbill

Yellow Bittern

Cinnamon Bittern

Malayan Night Heron

Black-crowned Night Heron

Chinese Pond Heron

Eastern Cattle Egret

Great White Egret

Intermediate Egret

Little Egret

Pacific Reef Heron

Grey Heron

 ((Taiwan Hill Partridge))

 ((Chinese Bamboo Partridge))

Swinhoe’s Pheasant

Ring-necked Pheasant

Eastern Spot-billed Duck

Peregrine

Oriental Honey Buzzard

Osprey

Black-shouldered Kite

Black-eared Kite

Crested Serpent Eagle

Crested Goshawk

Poss. Chinese Sparrowhawk

Besra

Poss. Eastern Buzzard

White-breasted Waterhen

Common Moorhen

Black-winged Stilt

Avocet

Pacific Golden Plover

Kentish Plover

Little Ringed Plover

Lesser Sand Plover

Pheasant-tailed Jacana

Whimbrel

Curlew

Redshank

Marsh Sandpiper

Greenshank

Terek Sandpiper

Common Sandpiper

Grey-tailed Tattler

Turnstone

Great Knot

Red-necked Stint

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper

Curlew Sandpiper

Dunlin

Oriental Pratincole

Black-tailed Gull

Little Tern

Whiskered Term

White-winged Black Tern

Feral Pigeon

Oriental Turtle Dove

Red Turtle Dove

Spotted Dove

Emerald Dove

Oriental Cuckoo

Lesser Coucal

 ((Savanna Nightjar))

Silver-backed Needletail

House Swift

Common Kingfisher

Taiwan Barbet

Grey-capped Pygmy Woodpecker

Fairy Pitta

Grey-chinned Minivet

Brown Shrike

Long-tailed Shrike

Black Drongo

Bronzed Drongo

 ((Black-naped Monarch))

Taiwan Blue Magpie

Grey Treepie

Black-billed Magpie

Large-billed Crow

Yellow Tit

Grey-throated Martin

Sand Martin

Barn Swallow

Pacific Swallow

Asian House Martin

Striated Swallow

Oriental Skylark

Zitting Cisticola

Yellow-bellied Prinia

Plain Prinia

Collared Finchbill

Chinese Bulbul

Himalayan Black Bulbul

Rufous-faced Warbler

Black-necklaced Scimitar Babbler

Taiwan Scimitar Babbler

Rufous-capped Babbler

White-whiskered Laughing Thrush

Steere’s Liocichla

Dusky Fulvetta

Grey-cheeked Fulvetta

Taiwan Sibia

Taiwan Yuhina

Japanese White-eye

Asian Glossy Starling

 [Great Myna]

Crested Myna

 [Jungle Myna]

 [Common Myna]

 [Black-collared Starling]

 [Asian Pied Starling]

Taiwan Whistling Thrush

Johnstone’s Robin

 [Oriental Magpie Robin]

[White-rumped Shama]

Plumbeous Redstart

White-tailed Robin

Blue Rock Thrush

Brown Dipper

Tree Sparrow

White-rumped Munia

Scaly-breasted Munia

Eastern Yellow Wagtail

White Wagtail

Vinaceous Rosefinch

117 species (excluding exotics)

61 lifers                                                                     

This is the end

Taiwan Blue Magpie (D. Fettes) 

 Taiwan Barbet at nest hole (D. Fettes)

 Oriental Honey Buzzard (D. Fettes)

 Oriental Honey Buzzard (D. Fettes)

A male Plumbeous Redstart (D. Fettes) 

Kuen-Dar Chiang (guide) with TUB looking up! (D. Fettes)

The lifers keep coming!

 Oriental Skylark on a brownfield site (D. Fettes)

A gorgeous White-winged Black Tern (D. Fettes)

The past few days in Taiwan have been heavenly as we traverse the west coast of the island. I had loads of lifers like the Grey-tailed Tattlers (a Redshank-like wader with plain grey wings) and Oriental Skylark. The lark was quite interesting because its song was a squeakier version of our familiar Skylark. It seemed smaller with a buffy trailing edge to its wings. I've also seen a couple do 'seconders' this week including Oriental Pratincole - a bird that I originally twitched in Gimingham, Norfolk back in the early 90's!

A full version of the birding events will appear in forthcoming issues of Bird Watching Magazine as I must admit that there is just too much to say and I'm too knackered. However, for those interested I will publish a list of the birds that I saw - possibly tomorrow.

Anyway, one more day left. More pictures tomorrow.

Slowly heading north back to Taipei

 Straited Swallows (D. Fettes)

 Brown Shrike (D. Fettes)

 Black-shouldered Kite (D. Fettes)

 Crested Goshawk (D. Fettes)

Pheasant-tailed Jacana with a Common Moorhen (D. Fettes)

The ticks keep coming!

A male Swinhoe's Pheasant (D. Fettes)

 Pacific Swallow (D. Fettes)

 Taiwan Barbet (D. Fettes)

Formosan Macaque (D. Fettes)

More from Taipei and environs

 Chinese Bulbul

 Oriental Turtle Dove

 Yellow-bellied Prinia

Rain over Taipei