Red Footed Falcon in Suffolk plus some surprises

I am a little bit behind with news of my recent birding trips on this blog so apologises for that, hopefully i will soon be back up to date.

 Starting with a planned trip to Minsmere on the 4th May  but with a couple of diversions on route.                                         


                                                             Abberton Reservoir in Essex

News of the 5 Adult summer White winged Black Terns reached me and it was to good to resist and so that was the 1st diversion, distant but good scope views were obtained of these stunning Terns , sadly to far for photos but what a great start to the day (Thanks RR for info). Then onto Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk.


                                                                Rendlesham Forest Suffolk

                                                                    

♂ Red Footed Falcon.

Having now arrived at  Rendlesham Forest to hopefully see the male Red footed Falcon ,  we were not disappointed , Wow what a bird, this was my 10th RFF in the UK and i have had some great views of this species but this one topped the lot !!!

Coming into land.

Digi scoped photo.

Red Footed Falcon.

Sadly my photos don't do this bird justice (the light was awful) , but the views were great as it constantly swooped down to catch bugs to eat showing off its glorious red under parts.

Minsmere Rspb reserve.

Sand Martin.

We stopped and had a look over the heath on route to the reserve and were rewarded with flight views of Woodlark.

Once on the reserve we headed straight for Island Mere hide to have lunch , the hide was pretty busy but good views of Sand Martin & Swallows were had, you could just about hear the Savi's Warbler 'Reeling' in the distance (the hide was sadly just to noisy) but eventually i managed to get the Savi's Warbler in my scope and it was fantastic to watch it 'Reeling' .

Sedge Warbler.

From Island Mere hide we headed to the scrape and had great views of Sedge Warbler on route, the scrape was very busy with 100's of Black headed Gulls , the keen eyed could also pick out several Mediterranean Gulls.

Adult Black Tern.

Moving around the scrape several Common & Sandwich Terns were seen and also on one of the islands a stunning adult Summer Black Tern showed really well, i was also very pleased to see a single Little Tern.

There was a clear lack of waders with only a single Bar tailed Godwit , 3 Knot & 1 Turnstone seen , the usual large numbers of Avocet were present plus Oystercatcher & Redshank in much smaller numbers.

Kittiwake.

Moving round to the public hide we saw pretty much the same variety of birds we had already seen but added some really close views of Kittiwake.

The last hide we visited gave us the reward of a 1st summer Caspian Gull which was a welcome addition to a really great days birding.

Cute Rabbit.

Local April Birding plus a Trip to Essex

 I had a really busy April birding in Kent with some wonderful highlights plus an away day to Essex, here are a selection of some of my birding trips .   



                                 10th April : Sandwich Bay

Ring Ouzel by the Obs.

This stunning ♂ Ring Ouzel near the bird observatory showed really well at times and was my personal 1st record of this species in Sandwich.

♂ Ring Ouzel.

15th April : Conningbrook CP Ashford

Black Tern.

Neil Burt has been patching Conningbrook for many years and has found some really great birds in that time, and in times of large housing development this site is under tremendous pressure, however Neil is still toughing it out and has had an amazing spring finding some rare and scarce birds , sadly i missed most of them but i did see this delightful Black Tern.

Black Tern .

Watching this bird twisting and diving for fish with the back drop of several warblers singing was amazing, keep up the good work Neil.

20th April : New Hythe & Elmley Track

Nightingale.

A  visit to New Hythe to hopefully see or at least hear Nightingale was amazing , i was afforded my best ever views of this wonderful songster with 2 birds in particular giving a tremendous close show as they chased each other and now and again stopping to give a vocal show unrivalled.

Nightingale in full song.

There were so many other birds in full song it was quite an amazing site to visit , from here i headed to Elmley and drove up & down the track a couple of times.

Yellow Wagtail.

Lot's of birds to see along the Elmley track plus plenty of Brown Hares but the highlight for me was superb views of  Yellow Wagtail.

Yellow Wagtail.

25th April : Abberton Reservoir 

Ortolan Bunting.

I joined RR for a trip to Essex to see the ♂ Ortolan Bunting and although it was quite distant i had some really great scope views.

It was mainly feeding in the grass & nettles but the lovely bright colours were very evident even at this range.

Hybrid Blue headed x Yellow Wagtail.

We also saw this complex 'Yellow Wagtail' , stunning bright yellow underparts with a curious head colouration, birders on site were calling it Channel Wagtail !?

Channel Wagtail.

We popped into the visitor centre then had a brief view over the reservoir and saw good numbers of terns, mainly Common Terns but RR picked out an Arctic Tern then 2 Black Terns flew into view, another cracking days birding.

Ospreys at Rutland Water

                                                        Egleton Reserve

Osprey with a Fish.

On Tuesday the 16th April i had an away day to Rutland Water , i called into Egleton reserve first and heard & saw plenty of  Blackcaps, Chiffchaff & Willow Warbler.

Looking from the 'Redshank hide' there were very good numbers of Sand Martin using the man-made sand bank.

Then an Osprey was seen fairly close eating a large fish on top of the man-made Common Swift nest box platform.

The Osprey then flew off  with fish in toe towards Lagoon 4 so i soon headed there and had closer views as the Osprey just perched nearby.

Osprey.

Superb bird.

Adult Little Gull plus a Common Tern were also seen , lots of butterflies were seen including my first Speckled Wood & Orange Tip.

Speckled Wood.

Lyndon Reserve

From here i went to Lyndon Reserve to see the nesting Osprey's , on entering the reserve centre the bird feeders outside were very busy with good numbers of Greenfinch,Goldfinch,Chaffinch & Brambling.

Brambling , Chaffinch & Greenfinch

There was 8+ Brambling at feeders.

After dragging myself away from this superb feeding station i eventually made my to view the Osprey nest where Maya was sitting on 4 eggs.

Both parent's on the nest.

A really great day out in glorious weather.

Reculver & Dungeness & Godmersham

Black Redstart.

On Saturday the 6th April we started the day at Reculver , and the first bird seen was the immature male Eider which was on the sea near the Towers, we also saw the Black Redstart near the car park.

Immature male Eider.

We only paid a short visit here as the plan was to go to Dungeness to try and see the Common Crane, so that was the destination, the Common Crane had been reported along Denge marsh road and sure enough there it was although distant , reasonable scope views were obtained.

1st winter Common Crane.

We spent sometime watching this bird but it always remained distant , after a while i drove to Springfield bridge to have a look around and more or less straight away the Gulls all took to the sky in a right old panic , the Greylag Geese were also flying around , what was causing all this comotion ??

I soon picked out amongst all the various Gulls the Common Crane !!!!

Common Crane causing a panic.

Common Crane.

A walk around Dungeness Rspb reserve produced  good views of an adult Little Gull which was also new for the year plus 2 Sedge Warblers were heard along the entrance track which was a very pleasant sound indeed, various other highlights in the general Dungeness area included Wheatear, a brief Dartford Warbler & 2 Sandwich Terns.

Male Wheatear.

On the way back we called into Godmersham and had good views of ♂ & ♀ Mandarin on the river by the bridge.

A brief Kingfisher and 2 Grey Wagtails were also seen.

♂ & ♀ Mandarin

Stunning male Mandarin.

Grey Wagtail , ♂&♀ Wood Duck plus ♀ Mandarin ?

Of note we also saw a ♂ & ♀ Wood Duck (presumed escaped birds)  plus a 2nd female bird which looked like another female Mandarin ???

Dover and a visit to Sheppey

Yellow browed Warbler.

On Saturday 9th March i went to Pencester Gardens in Dover in the hope of seeing the over wintering Yellow browed Warbler, it had been seen briefly before i got there and after approx 20 mins it started to call and show well by the green footbridge.

As ever it was constantly moving and calling but gave some really great views.

                                                                              

Yellow browed Warbler.

I watched and listened to this delightful warbler for a good 40 minutes before heading to the Isle of Sheppey for an afternoon of birding.

2 Adult Mediterranean Gull's

Starting off at Leysdown there was 2 adult Mediterranean Gull's on the sea in superb plumage , lot's of waders moving up and down the coast line included Turnstone, Sanderling & Redshank.

A walk out to Shellness also produced many more waders with large numbers of roosting Oystercatcher's , Dunlin & Grey Plover.

Every post in the water held a Turnstone , Redshank, Grey Plover or Knot.

Knot

Plenty of Ringed Plovers & Sanderling were seen and 500+ Brent Geese were gathering in the adjacent fields with plenty of Red legged Partridge for company.

A brief look from the 'Raptor watch Point' at Capel produced a distant Ringtail Hen Harrier and half a dozen Marsh Harriers.

News of a Rough legged Buzzard showing well along the track to Elmley NNR had us heading there asap as it was already 4pm and the gate closes at 5pm !!!!

Well we were soon on site and had some superb views of the Rough legged Buzzard as it flew low over the track and landed .

Rough legged Buzzard.

The white terminal tail band was obvious at this range (see 1st photo) and you can just make out the pale head in the 2nd photo.

It eventually gained height and headed further out into the marsh.

Rough legged Buzzard.

Later in the evening we saw the Rough legged Buzzard flying back over the track and heading towards Funton Creek.

Going to Roost.

We also saw plenty of  Common Buzzards & Marsh Harriers along the track plus good numbers of Brown Hare.

Brown Hare.