The first Bumblebee species of the year was seen very breifly in the Botanic Gardens, Cambridge. Surprising as it wasn’t particular warm. A dead Red Admiral was also found.
Cambridge Botanic Gardens
Annual first Snowdrops of the year post: First Snowdrops of the year today in the Botanic Gardens, Cambridge.
Not a bad afternoon walk in the sun. Four House Sparrows seen in the paddocks, my first there for nearly three years. And two Merlins. A male in flight, and this distant perched female…
This Mute Swan looked lovely in the late afternoon light…
And a scenic shot of the sun going down behind the reeds…
Stayed overnight in Ware, and went to Amwell first thing nursing a terrible hangover. Not a lot to see. This Robin (taken with camera phone) was hungry.
A Bittern flew very close to the Reedbed hide flying from right to left across the mere. Livened up an otherwise uneventful hour.
Fowlmere
Tick number two for the year, and only nine days in to the year. Drove myself through a storm (gusts of over 100mph) to Aberdeen overnight. A long and rather treacherous drive. Arrived at site, and after a couple of hours sleep in the car until dawn, woke to find I was the only person at the site (the bird had been there a few days, and I’m guessing most people stayed away). Took me an anxious twenty minutes to find the Harlequin Duck, as it had move down-stream. But find it I did and spent an hour on my own watching and filming it before the first person turned up. A pair of Dippers were also seen, several Gooseanders and Goldeneye, as well as an Otter.
I’d taken an overnight bag with me as I’d considered spending some time doing the Scottish specialities and coming back the following day. However, heavy snow was forecast overnight, and so I decided just to try for Ptarmigan, a species I’d only seen once, in flight, and not since 1996. So I went to Glenshee where they were supposed to be easy. They weren’t, and I failed. Apparently there was not enough snow and so they had retreated to higher ground. I got up as high as I could but the weather began to turn and I decided not to push my luck. I don’t have much luck with Ptarmagins. I missed them with Tom in 2010 in Speyside (although he saw one), and missed White-tailed Ptarmagin at the cable-car at Jasper, Canada also in 2010, even though they’re supposed to be easy there too. Oh well, I did see lots of Red Grouse, a flock of Snow Buntings, and a few Ravens and Red Kites.
I then began my journey home just in time for the predicted second wave of the storm.
Edit (14/02/2015):
I received this email from the Grampian Ringing Group…
Toby,
Sorry for late response, I have been offline for a while. Thank you for your record of a colour-ringed bunting at Glenshee on 9th January 2015.
The bird in your photos appears to be yellow above white on the left leg, and metal above orange on the right. If so, it was ringed at Glenshee on the 2nd of January 2013, as a bird in its first winter. At the time we thought it was probably a male, but in our notes, we queried the sex because of its relatively short wing. Your photo clearly depicts a female, albeit a pale one - probably of the race 'nivalis'.
The colour ringed winter snow bunting project started in December 2009. The principle aim was to look at the turnover of birds at the ski centre in relation to winter weather, comparing males with females. Within winters, males are more site faithful than females. Similarly, male return rates from winter to winter are about 45%, substantially higher than for females (28%), and with little difference between first year and older birds. We have as yet had insufficient birds marked to detect differences in return rates following mild as opposed to severe winters, or between races (nivalis vs insulae) but hope that sort of information might accrue. One issue with the work is that the birds are using artificial habitats and scavenging scraps from the ski industry so I am not sure how applicable our results might be for wintering birds elsewhere. That said, we can only work areas that give access throughout the winter .......and in the mountains that means ski areas.
Thank you again for your record, much appreciated.
All best,
Mick Marquiss & Robert Rae (Grampian Ringing Group)
A cold, foggy, icy day. Too dense to go out early but decided to go to Barton around 11am. A bit disappointing in terms of numbers of finches and other small birds, though a flock of around 30 Golden Plover close over my head was enjoyable.
Went to Fowlmere last thing. Kept kicking this poor Heron around as it decided to always fly to the next place I was intended to go. Not much action for it on the partially frozen mere I guess.
First bird of the year was a Blackbird; several as usual on the apples in the garden at dawn. First tick of the year was a Little Bustard at Friarsthorpe in East Yorkshire. Last saw one of those by the side of the motorway in Monfrague, Spain, on 1st September 1998. Bit distant, and not the most exciting of birds, but a good start to the year!
Raptors seen on the drive up and down were Red Kite, Buzzard, Kestrel, and Sparrowhawk.