Spurn 3rd to 6th October

Made our annual 'Leeds Birders' trip to Spurn in October, I decided to go a couple of days early which proved to be a good decision. A Booted Warbler had been found on 1st October and ringed early on 2nd but not seen for the rest of the day, fortunately for me it was re-found on the morning of the 3rd in the field full of sunflowers by Southfield Farm. It was on view when I arrived though towards the middle of the field. It was feeding low down but kept landing on top of the sunflowers then flying a short distance and occasionally flying further. I hung around and eventually it flew directly towards me and landed in the bush a few metres away before moving on to the fence. Great views and my 3rd seen at Spurn.

Booted Warbler

Caught up with Yellow-browed Warblers on Vickers Lane, Easington and in Kilnsea plus a flyover Lapland Bunting over the Wetlands, also Merlin there and a Great White Egret south over the Triangle - was that my first at Spurn?
Friday the 4th produced a 3W Caspian Gull on the Wetlands and I managed 4 Yellow-browed Warblers out of 16 reported in the recording area.

Caspian Gull - 3rd winter 

The 'Leeds Birders' started to arrive in the afternoon before dinner at the Crown & Anchor and a few beers and exchange of news of our families and various birding travels. Mick Cunningham was a late arrival and missed the photo shoot!

In the foreground Roger Barnes (left) and Johnny McLoughlan with behind from L to R Paul Doherty, Vaughan Lister, Martin Quinlan, Me and Richard Hart

Saturday got off to a good start with a Barred Warbler in the bushes opposite Driftwood then Yellow-browed Warbler at the Crown & Anchor followed by 6 Bearded Tits dropping in to Corner Field.

Bearded Tit

A female type Common Redstart in Big Hedge looked interesting with a grey shawl and slight pale wing panel, possibly the eastern race samamisicus?

 

Common Redstart

An 'eastern' type Lesser Whitethroat was in roadside bushes by Sykes Field (5 were seen that day and one definite Siberian trapped). Finally a Snow Bunting showed well on Beacon Lane along with a dozen Redwing and several Brambling along the track.

Snow Bunting

Sunday rained all morning, I sat in the Scrape Hide and was rewarded with a Jack Snipe bobbing in the gloom before heading for home late morning only to hear that a Little Bunting had turned up in the same area after I left and then a Siberian Stonechat by the Crown & Anchor. 
Another great Spurn weekend!

Jack Snipe

Three Days in Prague 8th - 11th January

My first visit to the city of Prague and I couldn't decide whether to bother taking the camera. In the end I took the 300mm lens, 2x converter and 5D III which fit neatly in my carry-on luggage case, which is all I was taking. I was glad I did!
We flew directly to Prague from Manchester with Easyjet on a package booked through Thomas Cook staying at the 4* Hotel Elite on the edge of the old town, which I would recommend, and close to the river. All in for £250 for two is probably as cheap as I could get a weekend in Manchester.
It was cold, around zero degrees on our first day and after a walk around the town we headed for the river Vltava. 
Plenty of Black-headed Gulls and Greater Cormorant, Mallard, around 100 Tufted Duck, 4 Pochard and several Little Grebe. There were several larger gulls on concrete pillars in the centre of the river but as they periodically flew closer I could see that there was a mixture of Herring and Caspian Gulls. Several landed reasonably close to where I was stood and I managed some reasonable shots of first winter and adult Caspian Gull.

Caspian Gull 1st winter

Caspian Gull adult

Crossing the river we entered Petrin Park. There were not many birds but several Jay, Nuthatch, Great Spotted Woodpecker and one or two Short-toed Treecreeper plus a single Marsh Tit. I managed some decent photos of the treecreeper and have made a composite with a photo of a Eurasian Treecreeper taken in the UK for comparison.

Short-toed Treecreeper (L) v Eurasian Treecreeper (race brittanica)

I've seen quite a few Short-toed Treecreepers in the last few years and have concluded that there is no single feature that reliably separates the two species, other than voice, but they can be distinguished by a combination of field characteristics; Short-toed Treecreeper is generally;

• greyer below with buffish flanks,
• the outer edge of the largest alula feather is white with pale tip, whereas Eurasian Treecreeper generally just shows a pale tip,
• the pale band in the primaries overlap evenly forming an even band whilst in Eurasian the band is uneven,
• the bill is longer, particularly in the male Short-toed,
• supercilium between the eye and bill is fainter whereas in Eurasian it is as prominent in front as it is behind the eye,
• other features such as the short hind claw, dark and unstreaked forehead and colour of the primary tips I have found less helpful.

On the walk back to the hotel there were around 50 Jackdaw close to the river and I returned the following morning for a closer look. Of about 150 birds 10% had pale collars and one or two of these were very obvious such as the bird below.

Western Jackdaw probably soemmerringii

Western Jackdaw with ring

One of the birds, with a slightly less marked collar, had a ring which I was able to read. I sent the details to Prague Museum and got an almost immediate reply to confirm that the bird had been ringed in Prague ~ 2km away just over 4 years ago. So it looks likely that both nominate monedula and soemmerringii are resident here.
On our final day, which was around -5ºC with intermittent snow, we walked through the old town again then followed Parizska road north, through the poshest part of town, crossing the river again but this time to Letna Park. Several Great Spotted and a Green Woodpecker were a good start, along with Nuthatch and Jay.

Green Woodpecker

Then calling Long-tailed Tits, all looking pale headed and a least one with the pure which head of nominate caudatus. The cream of a superb species, often referred to as Northern Long-tailed Tit as it resides in NE Europe. I presume the birds with some black behind the eye and on the ear coverts are all within the range of caudatus or are inter breeds with europaeus.

Northern Long-tailed Tit

There were many more Red Squirrel in Letna Park than we had seen in Petrin Park and they were rather more approachable, one was a sooty black melanic.

Red Squirrels with lower animal melanic

On the way back a pair of Egyptian Geese were calling loudly by the bridge, an addition to my Czech Republic list.
So, all in all a very enjoyable few days. Prague is a beautiful city with lots to see and many good eating places. I'm sure with a bit more time and the opportunity to get slightly further afield there would have been many more birds to see.

The Hortobagy

Leaving Durankulak at 06:30 the wind was still blowing and it was raining hard. I drove up to the Romanian border which was only a 10 minute drive, there was no one at the Bulgarian side so I drove straight through. It didn't look like there was anyone at the Romanian side either, I drew to a stop by the border post and was just moving off again when there was a bang on the side of the van, there was someone here. The checks were brief however and I was soon on my way again. I drove around Bucharest then through Pitesti, joining the A1 at Sibiu there was a fantastic motorway here and I was making good progress. I had decided to cross the border in to Hungary near Oradea my route home would then take me close to Hortabagy where I planned to stop for a day. Joining the E79 north of Deva the road deteriorated rapidly and it looked like the whole length up to Oradea was being reconstructed, all at once, this mean't that the next 170Km were completed on a rough track with large holes everywhere. I thought it would take a couple of hours but it was closer to 5 hours before I finally made the crossing in to Hungary, stopping overnight in a motel near the border.
The following morning the sun was shinning as I drove for about an hour in to the small village of Hortobagy to get my permit to visit the bird watching sites in the area. I hadn't bothered with local currency at all in Bulgaria or Romania, paying for everything with a credit card and in Bulgaria they had been happy for payment in Euros. The visitor centre required Hungarian Forints for their payment so I had to withdraw cash, I had no idea what the exchange rate was and thought I was getting the equivalent of about £50 but withdrew over £300 by mistake, anyway I had plenty to pay for my permit which was 3000 Forints for a week pass which was about £7.50.
Hortobagy is an area of Hungarian Steppe grassland, which floods in the winter, with various fish ponds. In winter it is good for geese, wildfowl and birds of prey and in summer it is home to a large population of Red-footed Falcons and a range of steppe and marshland birds, it's also a reliable place to see Saker Falcon.
I headed for a small wooded area which my permit gave me access to and which held a large rookery and many pairs of Red-footed Falcon. I would guess there were at least 30 pairs but there could have been many more. Standing by the wood all you can hear is the cawing of the Rooks and the high pitched shrieks of Red-footed Falcons. If you want to see Red-footed Falcon, and get fantastic views this is the place to go. 

Red-footed Falcons

I took a lot of photos and could have stayed there all day but I also wanted to look at the fish farm which was about 15km away. The permit gave me access to the fish farm as well but it's a large area involving a 5km walk to the end of the ponds and the same back. There is a small steam train which runs at weekends which you can use to avoid the walk. 
The ponds hold a variety of water birds; Squacco and Purple Herons as well as the egrets, Marsh Harriers are constantly in view plus marsh terns with all three species around, numbers varied and I got the impression birds were moving through, Golden Orioles around the car park and a good range of wetland warblers with a handful of Great Reed, plenty of Reed and Sedge and quite a few Savi's Warblers and there is also a population of Moustached which I was keen to see.

Savi's Warbler

Penduline Tits could be heard calling all the way down the track and Bearded Tits were very active looking like some were carrying nesting material.

Penduline Tit - male

Bearded Tit - female

It was sunny but very windy making the search for warblers in the reed bed difficult but I finally located a singing male Moustached Warbler at the very end of the track.

Moustached Warbler

A colony of large gulls has established itself on an island viewable from hides at the end of the track, they are mainly Caspian Gulls but apparently there are also Yellow-legged with them.

Caspian Gull - adult

The following morning I planned to leave about mid-day but first I visited the Red-footed Falcons again and then went to look for the other bird which Hortobagy is well known for; the Saker Falcon, they tend to sit and even nest on the large pylons that cross the area in several places. I was lucky and found two birds either side of the road. They are distant and one bird was against the light but it was a reasonable view through a telescope. I stayed with them for a hour or so and eventually both birds flew but unfortunately both went away from me. They are an impressive bird, quite a bit bigger than a Peregrine looking about the size of Common Buzzard and a similar general colouration.

Saker on pylons and a crop which just about shows the bird!

I drove in a loop around Hortobagy and came across some nice groups of Common Crane feeding on the grassland and then finally set-off home.
Once I got near Budapest it was dual carriageway which continued through Austria, Germany, Belgium and France until I finally arrived at the Channel Tunnel.
I arrived home in Darley Dale at around 8pm on Saturday 7th May having driven just short of 10,000 miles and visited 12 different countries, a fantastic trip. Hopefully I can complete the second half of the trip to the Baltic States and Scandinavia next Spring!
I'll add in some of the scenic shots and other wildlife, particularly butterflies during the next few weeks.
Pam's mum, Barbara, passed away quietly in her sleep late on the 6th May, we will all miss her, she would have loved to have seen the photos from the trip.

The final route including return to UK