Easter surprises

Easter weekend was full of surprises for me. I hope you all had a great easter by the way. The collection of chocolate that I received is steadily decreasing, whilst the collection of chocolate in my stomach is steadily increasing! It was a great weekend down on the south coast at my Grandma's house, and I got a few more surprises that I certainly didn't expect...

For this posting, I thought, how about a little weekend diary to tell you about my bird sightings. The Quicksilver bird challenge from Good Friday to Easter Monday was what made me get out to do some birdwatching this weekend. The BTO Short List of British Birds (a simple bird tick-off list) meant that I could record my sightings easily. Back to the diary- let's start with last Friday then...

Good Friday- With the bird challenge up and running, I got up pretty early to do some garden birdwatching, to try and tick off some of the easy birds. I didn't get many surprises here but it was nice to see a few Starlings collecting nesting material from our lawn as well as a pair of Great Tits which hadn't visited in a while.

Afterwards I went down to the Rye Park with my Mum to see if I could spot any interesting ducks/woodland birds. The Grey Heron was one of the first birds added to the list. As I walked round to the woodland part, I saw small flocks of Blue Tits, and surprisingly, a small group of Long-tailed Tits high in the trees too. Lots of Chaffinches joined too and it was fantastic to watch. With a total of 23 already for the challenge in half a day, I must say that I was a bit optomistic for my final score. In the afternoon/evening, we travelled south to see my Grandma.

Saturday- Me and my Dad got up at the crack of dawn (well actually, about 8:00), but hey, thats early for me at the weekend. We set off to Titchfield Haven Nature Reserve for the opening time of 9:30 (Bit late for a nature reserve, don't you think)?

On the way to the reserve, my Dad had to stop off and get some cash at the cash point. Whilst I was sat in the car parked on the side of the road waiting for my dad, I experienced something truly special. I watched a pair of Great Tits in a tree next to me. They both had beaks full of insects, and to my amazement they went into a hole in the tree to feed chicks. After they had flown off, about 20 seconds later, a fox ran right in front of my eyes, and jumped over a gate next to the tree with the Great Tit nest. Meanwhile, a Blackbird sang its heart out in a berry bush on the other side of the tree. Just in the 2 minutes when my Dad stopped to get some cash- and we hadn't even been to the reserve yet!

The reserve was fantastic and had the most surprises. Within minutes, I had spotted some interesting waders like Avocets, Lapwings and Knots to add to the list. Before we got to he first hide, we saw a pair of Linnets on a gorse bush- wahay, a first sighting!

Lapwing:

Redshank:

Canada Geese:

In the first hide looking out onto scrapes, I saw hoards of Black-headed gulls, but there were a few rarities here and there, for example a couple of Mediterranean Gulls, and a very elusive Water Rail, pointed out to me by someone else in the hide. In the Collins Bird Guide it quotes, "The Mediterranean Gull is a scarce annual visitor to Britain and Ireland". This was definitely a nice surprise.

On the way out of the second hide, I saw another first sighting for me, the Chiffchaff. There was much debate as to the ID of the bird. With my dad's decent binoculars and a very distant record shot taken by me, we concluded that it wasn't the very similar Willow Warbler. Shortly after this, I saw what was my highlight of the day- the Scaup. For those of you who don't know- it is a fairly rare duck. Again, according to the Collins Bird Guide, this bird isn't often seen on the South coast of England. I really enjoyed Titchfield Haven Nature Reserve, and it made a great day out- I am sure many of you would enjoy a potter around there.

As we walked through the woodland part of the reserve we saw this Starling too:

Easter Sunday- No birding on easter day, so no additions were made to my list. We went to a Folk Music Festival for most of the afternoon. The rest of the day was made up of watching TV, eating chocolate and watching greedy Magpies take bread crusts from my Grandma's bird table.

Today- Again, no birding outings today, but as we were travelling back home on the motorway, I made some nice additions to my challenge list. Seen on the side of the road were Rooks and Jackdaws. I was kind of relying on seeing birds like the Jackdaw. Also seen was a Sparrowhawk flying overhead, and, closer to home where they are common, the Red Kite. In the Chiltern hills where we live, we get loads of Red Kites, so it was a relief to see this at such a late stage too.

So, anyway, here is my overall species list for the Quicksilver Easter Bird Challenge. My final score was 54 which I was very happy with. I did, however miss some easy species such as Coal Tit, Pheasant and Kestrel.

Mute Swan
Canada Goose
Shelduck
Gadwall
Fulvous Whistling Duck (unusual non-resident-click here for my previous confirmation of this sighting or here for confirmation on a different site)

Teal
Mallard
Shoveller
Tufted Duck
Scaup
Great Crested Grebe
Cormorant
Grey Heron
Red Kite
Sparrowhawk
Buzzard
Water Rail
Moorhen
Coot
Oystercatcher
Avocet
Lapwing
Knot
Black-tailed Godwit
Redshank
Turnstone
Mediterranean Gull
Black-headed Gull
Common Gull
Herring Gull
Feral Pigeon
Woodpigeon
Collared Dove
Swallow
Pied Wagtail
Dunnock
Robin
Blackbird
Song Thrush
Chiffchaff
Long-tailed Tit
Blue Tit
Great Tit
Jay
Magpie
Jackdaw
Rook
Carrion Crow
Starling
House Sparrow
Chaffinch
Greenfinch
Goldfinch
Linnet

Below: Fulvous Whistling Duck (see list above for details)

I look forward to seeing everyone else's list, and how mine compares. I know my score won't be close to winning, considering the highest score last time was 98, but its the fun and taking part that counts, eh... Many thanks to Andrew at Quicksilverbirds for organising.