I made my second ever visit to Birdfair this weekend, this time spending both the Saturday and Sunday there to take in as much as possible.
Last year's Birdfair was especially memorable for me, as I won the holiday competition being run by Birds & Nature Portugal, which I took back in March. It was great on the Saturday to meet Bernardo Barreto, our guide for the first part of the trip, together with Joao Jara, who heads up the business. Both great guys. I also dropped in and saw Bob Ford, who runs birding weekends based out of the Heights Hotel on Portland. I booked myself a weekend there in November, getting the Sunday night free of charge.
There were some interesting talks on potential birding destinations - the Baltic coast in Germany, Varanger in Norway and the Gambia. I also spent some time in the authors forum listening to Charlie Elder, author of Few & Far Between and Mark Avery & Keith Betton, authors of Behind the Binoculars. The latter interviewed a personal favourite of mine, birdwatching great Ian Wallace, who is always great value to listen to. Needless to say I bought both books - Charlie Elder particularly was a lovely chap.
Having stayed overnight at a Days Inn on the A1 near Peterborough (not bad despite the poor reviews on TripAdvisor), I was back on site again early on Sunday.
The day started with a talk by Ruth Miller & Alan Davies on their new book The Joy of Birdwatching. They're always very entertaining to listen to.
Talks on potential birding destinations covered France (poorly delivered as he was late) and Costa Rica. Young South African birdwatcher, John Kinghorn was inspirational with his account of his Southern African Big Year of 803 species. Nick Acheson of Naturetrek performed admirably after his projector broke down to inspire us with his attempt to see all of the world's big cats.
I paid a visit to David Lindo's stand to pick up a copy of his new book Tales from the Concrete Jungles, which he very kindly signed for me.
I then finished my Birdfair experience on the Swarovski stand, where courtesy of the good folks at Viking Direct, I purchased a new ATS60 scope with a 25m-50m eyepiece at a very attractive price.
A footnote. On both days I wore a distinctive t-shirt designed by @yolobirder to raise funds for the hen harrier protection campaign. It was great to spot a number of other wearers, and to get positive comments about it from so many people. My picture has since been tweeted by Dr Mark Avery and 'Henry' the Hen Harrier, whose head I got to try on. For further information, please visit www.henharrierday.org and sign the petition to ban driven grouse shooting here
All in all, another excellent & enjoyable event.
With the quieter summer months, I haven't done much birding of late. The one highlight was a year tick of a corn bunting whilst walking along the Ridgeway near Sparsholt Firs in Oxfordshire in July.
Friday 31st July - Sunday 2nd August (101 species - 170 for year)
With Jennifer visiting her family in Ireland, I took the opportunity to spend a few days in North Norfolk in search of some year ticks. I based myself in Blakeney at an excellent new B&B called Number 58, A reasonable price and the most amazing breakfast.
Friday
I started the day at RSPB Lakenheath. Sadly the golden orioles no longer breed there, but it's still a lovely reserve. On the walk down from the visitor centre, I saw both green and great spotted woodpecker.
The latter posed obligingly for a photo. I then had a lovely lengthy flight view of a bittern heading across the reed beds. At New Joist Fen another bittern showed well in flight and the family of common cranes were bugling close by, but sadly never came into view.
The new mere hide gave me a super close up flew of a third bittern in flight as well as this obligingly perched kingfisher.
I then moved onto the NWT reserve at Weeting Heath and had some reasonable close up views of a single stone curlew. Little else around other than a blackcap in the pines and a couple of juvenile kestrels,
En route to North Norfolk, a likely looking field yielded grey partridge and a close up singing yellowhammer.
I finished the day with an evening at another NWT reserve, Cley. This yielded a distant barn owl and a supporting cast of waders including whimbrel, greenshank, green sandpiper and my first ruff of the year. On the sea, numerous gannets were fishing just offshore.
Saturday
Saturday turned into something of a marathon with twelve hours of birdwatching. I started on the seawall at Burnham Overy Staithe, but this was disappointingly quiet bird wise - a few buzzard, curlew and egyptian geese to add to the weekend list, but little else. Cholesey Drying Barns was similarly barren - just a pheasant to the weekend list.
Titchwell RSPB was much more productive. A little stint and curlew sandpiper were in close proximity and enable comparisons with both each other and the nearby dunlins. From Parinder Hide, the eight spoonbill were visible, but I just missed seeing the wood sandpiper, which was to remain hidden during my visit. Someone claimed one of the eclipse moult ducks looked good for a garganey, but I wouldn't want to have put any money on this. On the beech were a couple of knot, whilst an obliging chinese water deer was a nice bonus on the walk back.
Time was moving on, so I headed down to Snettisham RSPB for the early evening high tide. Just as I arrived, a swirling flock of 1,000-2,000 knot flew overhead - the sound of their wingbeats startlingly loud. The tide came in quickly with a hugely impressive cast of thousands of knot, oystercatcher, godwits, sanderling, turnstone and some stunning summer plumage grey plover. It was quite a sight.
With darkness rapidly approaching, I sped the short distance down to Sandringham Forest and a well known spot for watching nightjars. A couple of London birders were already in place and we didn't need to wait long before a pair gave good close flight views. The supporting cast was a flyover woodcock and a hooting tawny owl - a great end to a super day.
Sunday
After Saturday's marathon, Sunday was always going to be a much quieter affair. After another enormous breakfast, I popped down to Cley for another visit. There was another curlew sandpiper on Pats Pool, whilst several snipe were weekend ticks. On the East Bank, the bearded tits stayed hidden, but I joined a couple of local birders to go through the tern flock, where eventually we found a single arctic tern.
It was getting seriously warm now, so my final stop was the raptor watch point at Swanton Nowers. Some honey buzzards had been seen for a few days a couple of days earlier, but sadly they had not lingered nor apparently bred locally, so I dipped on these. Compensation came in the form of a high flying red kite passing through.
All in all a successful weekend, but a few omissions I would have expected to have seen - little gull, little tern, wood sandpiper, red legged partridge, corn bunting, both song & mistle thrush, jay, spotted redhank, hobby, turtle dove, jay, bullfinch. Another time.
