'An Elusive Luscinia'

Swannery birding highlights of the week...

Monday 29th April to Sunday 5th May 2013...

Wildfowl...

The Egyptian Goose that arrived last Sunday lingered all this week and for a few days was joined by another exotic - a Bar-headed Goose...

This week's Bar-headed Goose...

Most years one or two (sometimes more) of these 'feral' visitors occur at The Swannery. This attractive goose is fairly common in wildfowl collections and escapes now regularly breed in the wild in Britain. At present though it's population is deemed to be not self-sustaining - not reaching the criteria for it being classed as an official naturalised species (i.e. placed in category C of the British List). Therefore 'The Listing Police' do not count it as 'tickable'. In a true natural state they breed by upland lakes in Central Asia and migrate over the Himalayas to winter in the Indian Sub-continent.

The three Greylag Geese that my colleagues inadvertently flushed off the Swannery nest site first thing on Wednesday  (while I was having a Birthday lie-in) just kept on going, so were far more wary than either of the aforementioned geese or the local Canadas. They were most likely to be 'feral' birds too of course, albeit rather wary ones, but could their nervousness actually point to the possibility that they were late migrants - truly wild Scandinavian breeders en route from their Spanish wintering grounds? If the latter then they were certainly well on their way north by the time I got down to The Swannery later in the day.

Despite a good selection of (all dodgy?) geese this week, unsurprisingly wild duck numbers (apart from Shelduck, Mallard and Tufted Duck) continued to drop, with for instance no Shoveler by the end of the week and very few Teal, Gadwall and Pochard, while the only Pintail left was the resident 'Mallard-loving' male. The biggest surprise though was the re-appearance of a female Long-tailed Duck on Tuesday evening...

The female Long-tailed Duck on Tuesday evening (with a Canada Goose)...

...and the female Long-tailed Duck (with a Mute Swan) on Wednesday morning.
Always distant it was last seen on Friday.

Raptors...

The occasional Marsh Harrier continued to be seen off and on but the best 'BOP' this week was an Osprey on Monday...

The Osprey being mobbed by a Shelduck...

And once the Osprey got the message that it was not welcome Shelducks escorted it out of Swannery airspace .

Waders...

There was no significant passage this week but eight species made it into the log... Oystercatcher, Lapwing, Dunlin, Bar-tailed Godwit, Common Sandpiper, Redshank, Turnstone and Whimbrel, all but the latter in single figures.
 

Gulls & Terns...

Once again there were no real surprises on the gull front and this week only two species of tern... Common Terns finally making it into double figures, with at least sixteen today but in what has been a poor spring for them Sandwich Terns dropped off with less than ten present daily.

Land-birds...

With clear skies for most of the week grounded migrants were hard to come by. However most of the commoner species already seen this spring were present in small numbers but several mostly less common species still haven't been added to the year list as yet (Garden and Grasshopper Warbler, Pied and Spotted Flycatcher, Redstart, Whinchat and White Wagtail). Therefore a real surprise was only my fifth ever Luscinia for my patch...a Nightingale...



The Nightingale that spent Monday skulking in my garden (which just qualifies as my patch as it adjoins The Swannery).

Regrettably it defied confirmed identification until nearly dusk when it popped out briefly allowing this quick shot to be taken through my bedroom window. Unfortunately it never sang and was not seen again! Of my four previous Swannery Luscinia records - one was an autumn Bluethroat in the reed bed: one was an autumn Nightingale flushed off the withy bed path: one was a heard only, sub-singing, 'Nightingale sp' one late spring from deep within nettles and the fourth was actually Dorset's second ever Thrush Nightingale that I saw being released after it was pulled out of a mist net!



Other wildlife...

The highlight was a belated first Adder of the year...

 

Adder in the lower Swannery car park this week.

There was a time when any visit to the drier banks of the reed beds on a warm spring day would reveal numerous individuals, a high percentage being black (or even red), but this male is of the classic light grey variety. Sadly sightings of any at all nowadays are few and far between.



Next week...

So the hoped for flocks of Swallows and House Martins 'carrying' a Red-rumped Swallow never materialised (just twos and threes) nor did any significant falls of nocturnal migrants. So lets hope it's not too late and something as noteworthy as a Nightingale or even better arrives this coming week too!