A Hotchpotch of news!!

Thursday 6.50pm and here we go. Good to know we are in the next round, but ironic that it should help our future matches if we lose tonight.

A few things to tell you, both from when we were on holiday, and since our return.

Aspirants for the 200 club are finding it difficult to increase their year count, with Amanda on c182, and me (subject to below) on 171.

But Christine with husband John had a Heatherlee birding holiday in the Western Isles and had a fabulous time with 15 birds added to her 2018-year list. White Tailed Eagle, Golden Eagle, Corncrake were just 3 of the good birds, and she is currently poised on 199.  Poised that is, because a Bittern or even a Kingfisher will get her the 200.

I was away for the Markeaton Bird Walk, so 3 regular birders were escorted by Dawn for the morning. 5 Juvenile Goosanders were seen, which seems to confirm the good news that annual breeding is still taking place on the big island. They also saw 4 Mandarin Ducks, one being a juvenile, so they are breeding somewhere. Mandarins are strange birds, for ducks, as they breed low down in trees, and I recall on one occasion that Mandarins were reported as nesting in Padley Gorge.

Our new fountain seems to be attracting the birds, and Mary picked up the vivid green and yellow of a couple of Greenfinches who I assume had smelt the water.

Someone left a message on the Friends of Markeaton Park web site (which also has reports of what my BwB walks have seen), reporting 3 Ring Necked Parakeets flying over the A38 near the park. I think the reporter were a little startled by the sighting.

I did a talk on Tuesday morning to the Church Wilne Probus Club, about the Carsington Water Osprey Project, and came away with a generous donation for the Volunteer Rangers Osprey nest maintenance fund. I also came away with a booking for Dave Drury, a full time Severn Trent Ranger, to talk to them about Carsington Water itself, from the inception, building and operation, and how the water management fits in with the wider Severn Trent water networks.

Incidentally, if you don’t know of the Probus Club, it stands for Professional and Business men, and is for retired people who enjoy meetings and talks together.

Tuesday June 26^th and after a longish break from birding together, Chris and I spent the morning at Attenborough Gravel Pits.   Turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far, so as we were toting scopes, pods and bins, we limited our birding to the 2 hides. At least we were out of the direct sun. Many young birds around, no raptors, but we did tick a Black Swan, heard but could not find a Lesser Whitethroat (we both want that one for our year list!!!).  I was pleased to see a pair of Ruddy Shelduck, moving me on to 172.

Liquid input was important, so we started with a coffee, and then returned for lunch. Ok until Chris started on my mushroom soup instead of waiting for the Panini she had ordered.   HER senior moment this time, not mine.

We had a planning session for the rest of June, so Tuesday week is Old Moor, me hopefully for 

Yellowhammer and Green Pecker, and Chris for Kingfisher or Bittern. One of those would be a nice memorable number 200 for Chris.

I’ll let you know next week why you have had 3 posts this week!!!

In the meantime, happy birding, oh and enjoy your walk on Sunday with Keith and Gary!!!!

Was the football result predictable?  No…. but useful!!

Majorca 2018 - The Sequel

Only me!!!

And this is a picture of???????????

  

Checking on my mobile phone whilst we were away, I was pleased to see that Anonymous from Portugal had added an interesting comment/report on his Portugal sightings, to my blog of 27^th May. If you get my column by direct mail, you may like to log back into my web site and have a look at the 2 comments on May 27, including the regular contribution from Slim Bridge.

As you will have realised from my previous blog entry, we love the Picafort Park, and it is clearly popular with guests who return year after year. We heard of one couple who had visited 40 times, and another couple we know (The Hoff and Betty Boo) had just enjoyed their 21^st holiday. We are on a lowly 6^th.

Sobriquets such as the ones above are usually given by the Entertainment team, who provide names THEY can remember. Amongst friends that we meet, there have been John Wayne, Scary Mary, The Hat or The Colonel (2 titles I have used) Mary has been Merry Xmas, and there is also Matt Munro, Will I am, G-F. This year we had a Dangerous Dave, Rob Roy & Jenny Wren.

Back to the birds and, following my report of what I see as my private(!!) hotel nature reserve, the other place to visit is of course Albufera, which I managed to visit 3 times this month. Towards the end of the holiday, the weather really hotted up, so the first visit, on foot at 8.45am turned out to be the best time to enjoy good light without excessive heat.

On my first visit, as usual Cattle & Little Egrets and Night Herons were squabbling in their usual breeding area, and 3 Nightingales were heard AND seen along the path to the visitor centre.  I can just stand and listen for ages to their huge range of wonderful musical phrases.

And my early start was rewarded with an Osprey drifting across the reeds to find some open water areas.

Despite the obvious lack of any recent rain, the dry mud revealed some very juvenile Avocets, Black Winged Stilts and Kentish Plovers. Surprisingly, and for the first time for 7 years, 7 Flamingos were at Singleton hide. Also, there was a bedraggled Spanish Sparrow, only bedraggled because he had enjoyed a good wash! Final goodie before I headed back to the hotel for the pre-lunch libation, was a Squacco Heron in the reeds.

The Second trip was with Chrissie and 14 other guests. A very thin Purple Heron took off from the canal giving good views, but as we started our walk that was eclipsed by 3 sightings of Glossy Ibis. One of the birds seemed to circle round us, so that even without bins the large curved beak was very visible. 

We clearly saw Cattle Egrets conveniently on the back of cattle, and a Purple Galinule feeding 2 young!  Finally, a couple of turtles added to the wildlife sightings.

For my 3^rd outing I wanted to try and get to an observation platform a bit off the main area, so I decided to hire a bicycle from the hotel for the morning. Good decision, and having navigated the route with the least hills, I was soon enjoying views of up to 7 Bee Eaters on the power lines, and watching their forays into the air, to take out bees. Just what I wanted to see!

Strangely, the platform overlooked some pink effluent settling ponds, and when a Common Tern flew low over the water, the strong light reflection made the feathers look pink! Oh for a camera.. that would have confused the experts. 

The only other sighting of note during the holiday was at the old town of Alcudia, a town with many very old stone-built buildings, affording excellent nesting facilities for Swifts. On Sunday the market day, the birds could be seen wheeling amongst the buildings and screaming constantly. Coupled with my knowledge of their life style, it’s not surprising that Swift rates as my Number 1 species.

We have Cyprus and Belgium yet to look forward to, but I know that neither will give me the birding adrenalin that Majorca does, so we will return to Majorca. 40 species for a casual holiday bird-wise added 14 to my 2018 world list, now on 185.

Did you guess what the picture was?   It was in fact a very nice Fathers’ Day gift from my daughter and son-in law, and the nest house is now on my garden fence. It is in the hands of Frank Innes my property letting agent – newlywed Blue Tits get a special deal!

Happy birding.