Two Great Northern Divers [ juvenile and a possible returning adult] were back at Carsington Water yesterday. Joining them were three juvenile Shags. Local wildlife photographer Glyn Sellors grabbed some excellent shots of these birds. To view them, click here to visit the CBC Image Galleries.
My snatches of birding in Portugal had to be short and sweet –usually early in the morning – as my wife’s not overly interested in our avian friends (though even she quite enjoyed seeing White Storks nesting in the tops of chimneys!).
We’d never been to the Algarve before, so deciding where to go was not straightforward. In the end we selected a fairly modern (and large) apartment on the seafront in Olhão, which is located on the quieter side of Algarve (ie going east rather than west after emerging from the airport).
I have to admit my final choice was not altogether unassociated with birds, since I could see from pictures on the ‘booking.com’ website that the accommodation – close to a new marina development – was very close to the sea, and adjacent to some tidal lagoons and salt-marsh.
And from the birding viewpoint it turned out to be ideal as I quickly discovered when walking out of the apartment and, within 300 yards, I was in among a selection of Cormorants, egrets, terns, gulls, waders – and Flamingoes. In just two hours or so before breakfast I’d logged my first 40 species of the holiday!
We were only there for a week, yet by the time we flew out of Faro, heading home, I could count 90 species in my notebook, including three ‘lifers’. These were Azure-winged Magpie, which tend to occur mainly in the south of the Iberian peninsula, the Black-winged Kite (a delightful small raptor that hovers) and a Black-headed Weaver, usually a resident of Africa that has begun to colonise the wetland areas found in the very south of Portugal and Spain in recent years.
The only mild disappointment was the paucity of raptors. Meanwhile, other highlights included a range of my ‘continental’ staples – Corn Bunting, Stonechat, Hoopoe, Cetti’s, Fan-tailed and Sardinian Warblers, Kentish Plover and Black-winged Stilt – and there was a dazzling array of wetland and coastal birds, notably Spoonbill, Glossy Ibis, Cattle Egret, Avocet, Green Sandpiper, Sandwich Tern and Slender-billed Gull, plus those impressive White Storks and Flamingoes.
I renewed my very occasional acquaintance with birds like Blue Rock Thrush, Red-rumped Swallow, Pallid Swift and Spotless Starling, and, after several abortive attempts to find a particular ‘hot-spot’ near the golfing paradise of Quinta do Lago, I finally hit lucky, with even the luxury of a hide to use – and in a single session I added to my list Garganey, Purple Gallinule, Little Bittern, Red-crested Pochard, Common Waxbill and those dainty Weavers, which lived up to their names by building their nests of old brown reeds among the fresh green stems (see picture).
We’d certainly return to the Algarve, but would probably aim to stay at Tavira, further east and half way between Faro and the Spanish border, which is a very attractive small town with plenty of accommodation and restaurants. And I would also plan to use one day to go a little farther inland – where apparently Great and Little Bustards reside, along with a range of ‘plains’ bird such as sandgrouse, Stone Curlew and a much wider range of raptors.
The club decided to go closer to home than usual when staging the latest members’ trip. Yet the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust’s Drakelow reserve – near Burton on Trent, and right on the border with Staffordshire – is still a fair journey for those among the nine-strong group who’d travelled the farthest, from Buxton and Chesterfield.
The reserve lies close to the River Trent and has a mix of habitats with some lakes and smaller lagoons, plenty of woodland cover and, being an old power station site, extensive flat open spaces.
We were met shortly after 9am by the reserve’s keen recorder Syd Garton, who took the time to explain the geography and what was around that day. The first bird I noted, while we were still in the small car park, was Common Tern, three of which were circling overhead before tracking down the Trent.
From one of the three hides, there were good views of an island hosting a huge colony of Cormorants, most of which were making plenty of noise in their nests dotted among the guano-spattered tree tops. We’d also been told about a quiet crossing point among reeds farther into the reserve, and viewable from another smaller hide, where we might see Water Rail. Well, we did! Or, at least, we caught a glimpse of a couple of the chicks, all black except for their light-coloured bills, as they sprinted across the clearing.
Walking around the woodlands areas, the usual springtime suspects rang out their familiar songs – Willow Warbler, Reed Warbler and the occasional Sedge, plus Chiffchaff, Blackcap and Whitethroat – joining the resident birds such as Reed Bunting, Wren, Blackbird, Song Thrush and Robin. A Cuckoo was heard and, by following its song, we got scopes trained on it as it settled down for some minutes in the top of a tree.
On leaving the reserve, via a half-mile access road, we stopped alongside open ground and heard Skylarks and, as though by way of a parting boost to our tally, a Red-legged Partridge and Lapwing showed themselves among the long grass, and a pair of Shelducks flew low overhead.
While each of us had just 40-odd species in our notebooks by the time we left the site, comparing notes afterwards it emerged that the group had collectively seen 50 species – quite a haul for a Sunday morning.
The full list is as follows: Common Tern, Magpie, Wood pigeon, Cormorant, Grey Heron, Tufted Duck, Wren, Chiffchaff, Black-headed Gull, Swift, Greylag Goose, Robin, Gt Crested Grebe, Coot, Green Woodpecker, Blackbird, Carrion Crow, Mallard, Reed Bunting, Pheasant, Reed Warbler, Water Rail, Long-tail’d Tit, Blackcap, Blue Tit, Mute Swan, Moorhen, Little Grebe, Buzzard, Willow Warbler, Cuckoo, Kestrel, Sedge Warbler, Lesser Black-back Gull, House Sparrow, Gt Spotted Woodpecker, Sand Martin, Dunnock, Song Thrush, Chaffinch, Swallow, Canada Goose, Oystercatcher, Sparrowhawk, Gadwall, Great Tit, Whitethroat, Red-legged Partridge, Lapwing, Skylark and Shelduck.
Anniversaries seem to roll round at an alarming rate, and as we approached “35” my wife Meryl and I decided on another ‘special’ holiday. We’d been to New Zealand at 25, Canada five years later, so looking for somewhere different we thought we’d try Asia – and with a love of wildlife Borneo seemed an obvious choice.
Our tour also took in the frantically-busy cities of Kuala Lumpur and Georgetown on mainland Malaysia, plus the rather-more-sedate and distinctly cooler Cameron Highlands, which offered further chances for good bird-watching. But without doubt, the Borneo jungle was the outstanding highlight. Magical is an overused adjective, but the view from our balcony at Borneo Rainforest Lodge – overlooking a garden, meadow and river with the jungle’s living tapestry as a backdrop – was, well, magical.
I’d tried to research which bird I might see there – courtesy of trip reports and two field guides – but there were so many types I’d barely heard of, such as flowerpeckers, sibias, minlas, trogons and fulvettas, it seemed a forlorn hope. At the end of 14 days, though, I’d accumulated a list of 118 species, so perhaps the ‘homework’ did do some good after all.
Of course, bird-watching somewhere so totally alien calls for different techniques, since virtually all birds spotted were new to me! So, after my trusty binoculars, my most important tool was a notebook in which I scribbled the distinctive features of each unrecognised bird. Then, after each birding session I’d dash back to my room and pore over the field guide to see if I could work out what I’d seen!
I got practical help in a couple of locations: a local birding guide was available for the early-morning ‘waves’ in the Cameron Highlands, and at the two jungle lodges, personal guides kept us busy with as many treks, canopy walks and night drives and they – and we – could manage … So, I have to admit a fair few ‘spots’ were largely down to local expertise, though I did still check out the field-guide to make sure.
I’ll come back to the birds, but Borneo’s bewildering range of primates, reptiles and insects is also worthy of mention. Orang-Utans are a highlight, of course, and we saw them both in rehabilitation reserves and in the wild. One truly magical (oops, there I go again) moment for me was when I returned alone to a canopy walk and spotted to my right a mother and baby Orang relaxing in a tree top just 30 yards from me. Doing the decent thing, I switched off my camera’s flash, but in those valuable few seconds, the orange beasts had silently slipped out of sight.
Long- and pig-tailed macaques, Bornean gibbons, proboscis monkeys and red- and silver-leaf langurs were among other primates we saw among the branches. Their haunting calls – along with the immense din generated by cicadas at dusk – brought the jungle alive.
I saw flying squirrels, tree shrews, a slow loris and several monitor lizards, one lumbering sedately over a golf course. Massive bird-winged butterflies flew by and daintier tree nymphs seemingly floated down like leaves to feed on flower buds. Photos of stick insects, leaf insects that were virtually impossible to spot among the vegetation, several other types of mantis, a scorpion and a rhinoceros beetle were obtained fairly easily as they were part of the display in an oddly-named ‘butterfly farm’.
The most awesome bird of the trip was almost certainly the Rhinoceros Hornbill, which is four feet long and competes with the cicadas as the noisiest thing in the jungle. I saw four hornbill species in all, including at Kinabatangan Riverside Lodge a pair of ‘Oriental Pieds’ that evidently roosted in the same tree every night.
Among several raptors, the White-bellied Sea Eagle was probably the most impressive, while for stunning colours the Black-naped Orioles that patrolled a city-centre park in Kuala Lumpur were hard to beat, though the electric blue Large Niltava ran them close, each Kingfisher seen was a riot of several shades, and the Whiskered Treeswift’s markings were exquisite.
Bulbuls were busy and characterful, the Black-thighed Falconet (a sparrow-sized raptor!) was a delight, and unusual names like Silver-eared Mesia and Black-throated Wren Babbler have now made it onto my ‘life list’, but surely the Fluffy-backed Tit Babbler wins the prize as the cutest name.
Nevertheless, a few old acquaintances from previous Asian trips popped up again, including the Oriental Darter, Spotted Dove, Hill and Common Myna, Brahminy Kite, Dollarbird and Large-billed Crow. Each seems fairly widespread across most of South-east Asia.
Though my list included very few birds we would see in the UK, it was nice to see Grey Wagtails, and Tree Sparrows seemed to have replaced their ‘House’ cousins in co-habiting with people.