The 17

 Whetsted GP 0600 - 0900 Cold, N f1-3

Ferrug Duck was not on west pit today, where it hangs out....still plenty of Tufteds though....maybe it was hiding from the cold...but more likely moved on....

Cold visit to the pits....northerly....thankfully eventually the sun came out and it was a tad warmer....just....hope it warms up soon....birds didnt seem to mind though...

So...good news....17 Nightingales....best total since i have been to the pits, about ten years or so....they are now spread out quite a bit and many now reside in the western end thanks to changin habitat....though of course it means there are less elsewhere....the habitat becoming not what they like....

White Dead-nettle

So what else was around....

Lesser Whitethroat 5

Common Whitethroat 15+

Cettis Warbler 2

Garden Warbler 2

Willow Warbler 2

Reed Warbler....lots...

Blackcaps and Chiffhaffs...even more lots

Pit

Swans nest right next to the footpath at west pit

Anything else of interest....yes....

I found a Mistle Thrush, always great to see.....north field....3 Med Gulls flew over calling...also over went one Great Black-backed Gull and later one Lesser Black-backed Gull....4 Egyptian Geese took flight from west pit....

There were plenty of Swallows and Sand Martins on west pit.....over on middle pit there werent so many, but with them was a solitary House Martin.....

Dead Grass Snake....not far from the heronry

Cold Whetsted

 Whetsted GP 0600 - 1020 WNW wind varying f1 - f4-5, cool to cold, soetimes warm in the sun

A chilly walk with DH for four hours.....

The Ferruginous Duck was still present on the western most pit.....looking rather velvety brown in the occasional....very occasional....sunshine.....we were lucky enough to get good flight views as well...

Photo thanks to DH

On West Pit with the Ferrug Duck and Tufteds was one lone Pochard and one female Goldeneye.  Seems a bit late for them as the ones that had over wintered here have been gone two weeks....

I mentioned the other day about the more recent habitat destruction that had occured north of the pits probably last year, which i photographed.....but I forgot to get a photo of the area I had mentioned they did a couple of years ago which is now a monoculture wasteland with few birds on it, in fact I saw one bird on it today, 2 woodpigeons the other day....but this area below was covered with scrub and would usually hold Whitethroats and more migrating birds,....anyway....so here it is...

I dont know who owns the land, theres a pretty big land owner along the road a way that has a load of oast houses to its name, maybe them?.....but they havent done anything with this bit of land apart from cut the grass that i can see....there are a few other species gradually coming back in the sward but I dont hold out any hope....I can only guess that someone, without any knowledge or understandign of ecology, simply wanted to 'tidy it up'....as humans like to do.....what a waste....

Other than that....

At west pit a few Swallows turned up....then a few Sand Martin....then one House Martin....they were clearly slowly moving in from the south....after another ten minutes or so a steady flow had begun and each species had numbers present, flying low over the water.....great to see all three species arrving at the pits on the same day....

13 Nightingales

5 Lesser Whitethroat

8 Common Whitethroat

1 Reed Warbler

3 Cettis Warblers

1 Cuckoo

Possible record year....Nightingales

 Whetsted GP 0620 - 0930 cool but warming, overcast, slight breeze

So lets start with the bad news....heres a nice bit of habitat clearance....not!.....

....this used to be covered in scrub, its on the northern side of the site and has suffered the same fate as the bit of land that I highlighted a while back.  Quite why they have cleared it like this is unknown.  The previous bit of land they did this too is now a desert of grass.  I should have taken a photo to compare I suppose but will do so next time.  They dont seem to have any particular reason to do this, the other bit has been cleared for some time and as far as I can see hasnt been used for anything.  I know humans seem to have some kind of habit of 'tidying'...hence the serious decline of flora and fauna in this country....heres a fine example, total destruction, zero birds using this as before, fewer insects no doubt.  Well done people.

And on to some not so bad news....the Feruginous Duck is still present.  Reported on a couple of sites on the net.  To the right in the photo is a Tufted male, the rarer bird on the left.  I only h ad my phone....so its what it is.....

Whilst I was on site a couple were indeed looking for the duck.  Its rare enough to find anyone on site if theres no rare birds to look at....so im sure there will be a steady flow...but hopefully it goes soon.  They will appear over winter in the UK but by around Spring will be gone again, so im sure this one wont be here too long.

Greater Stitchwort

Thankfully theres some good news.  Very good news.  Nightingales.....there are already 15 singing on site.  The best number counted in any year for me so far is...15....last year.  There has been a steady increase over the past three or four years of one extra bird a year....most years anyway....previously the best was 12, but as I say, it has been increasing gradually.  Along with this increase and probably due to habitat change they have been spreading west along the site and there are now 4 at West Pit, the most there has been.

So, this is really good news because migration is nowhere near over.  It probably leaves a week or two for more birds to arrive.  And fingers crossed, one or two more on site would be amazing.

Bluebells

Other birds that should not be forgotten today.....

2 Lesser Whitethroat

4 Common Whitrthroat

2 Willow Warbler

1 Sedge Warbler

2 Cettis Warbler

1 Yellowhammer

1 Cuckoo

1 Treecreeper

Loads of Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs..........

From 30deg plus...to....Whetsted....

 Back to reality.....Whetsted GP 0845 - 1100 cool but warming, little wind, occasional sun

After hearing Nightingale in Morocco over the past 9 days.....I was surely hoping to find one at Whetsted....

But I didnt find one....I found seven....which was a real surprise.  But a great surprise indeed.  And all 7 wanting to sing....the best bird song I have ever heard.....

It remains rather wet and muddy under foot at Whetsted and the pits remain rather full.

Other birds of note.....2 Willow Warblers, 2 Cettis Warblers, 1 Cuckoo....plenty of Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs.

Gypsywort

Ringing in Morocco

Morocco - Ringing trip 26 March to 6 April 2024 

I had been considering some ringing in Morocco for a couple of years.  I have visited the country, family holidays, for a few years now and enjoyed some time bird watching...usual stuff, a few hours here and there....but...Morocco has so much to offer in the bird world....and its cheap to get to and cheao to stay there.....

I flew out to Ouarzazate, which is the eastern side of the Atlas mountains.....

....yes, you have to fly Ryanair...there arent many companies that fly to this small airport.  And it is small.  Sometimes your plane may be the only one there and a busy time might be three or four flights a day!!

But.....the advantage is time saving and money saving....from Gatwick its more expensive to fly to Marrakesh and then hire a car for the four or five hour trip to Ouarzazate, which you have to drive past anyway....so this saves time and money.

I stayed in the town for a night before heading out toward Merzouga on the edge of the Sahara desert.

Moroccons are a lovely people.  Very friendly.  Drive like loonies a lot of the time, but its all done in the best possible taste, as someone once said.

There is a list of birds I ringed at the end....and a list of birds I saw....some previously seen....some new to me....

We found this Gecko one evening on the last net round as it was getting dark....

Didnt have time for much bird watching, but on one of the last days we headed out on a short trip to find a few species that we were unlikely to ring....including this fine Hoopoe Lark....

The Moroccons love overloading their lorries......

This is the last bird I ringed over the 9 days at the ringing site.....Orphean Warbler....

Well....you have to have the inevitable desert photos....heres the first...more to follow.....

Below....the sun rising just after we had opened the nets in the morning....that distant ridge is Algeria.

Mammals....came across some interesting wildlife...totally unexpected....you just never know what you will bump in to right at the edge of the sand dunes of the Sahara.....this is a Jeboa....

The ringing station is based at the Hotel Yasmina, and out the back of the hotel is some scrub and a few trees....and some ponds....in fact, the whole area is, or can occasionally be a lake, depending on how much rain they have.  Its amazing to see the photos of the lake just a few years ago....but there has been no lake for some time...however...the hotel pumps out some...er....water....and...er...mixed in sewage of some sort....rather smelly.....anyway.....heres a toad....I will leave the rest to your imagination as to where they hang out...

Back to birds.....this guy, a Whinchat, was just about exhausted, had used up all its fat reserves and a lot of muscle getting across the desert....when they are in this condition survival is really on the edge, fingers crossed to this little one....

Its hard to imagine so much life hanging out in the desert....but it does.....I dont know what this plant is...but clearly its used to doing its bit in extremely harsh conditions....

Saharan dunes....no...they arent really different colours....its just the way the sun is shining and some dusty sand is blowing in the distance and the heat haze....however...there is a beauty in the Saharan sand that is unimaginable and hard to describe....the sun passes over during the day and the colours of the sand change as it does.....

Heres one of 'our' Wheatears...Northern Wheatear.....I had seen one at Rye Harbour just a few days before heading to Morocco....they are one of the real long distance travellers in the migration world...

Another bird we can find here in the UK....Common Redstart....

A much clearer view of the ridge that is Algeria....

One of the speciality Wheatears that I went for....not the most colourful one we ringed, scroll down for that.....but this is a Seebohms....

I think this sheep was attempting its own version of the Great Escape....

The inevitable camel train passing by where we had parked whilst searching for some Wheatears to retrap or ring...

And below...off they go in to the sandstorm that was blowing in....

We had some luck using some spring traps to retrap birds that had been ringed previously, last year, to monitor them.  These are colour ringed for a project on White-crowned Wheatears...

This is a juvenile from this year...already!!....way ahead of us here in the UK....you can see the white feathers coming through on the cap....

Get your sunglasses.....!!

Wow time......there were both Europeand and Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters flying around every day.  It really is great to ee the Blue-cheeked variety as they live so far south.....and this...is the one and only bird we trapped whilst I was there and I even got to ring it....best bird, for me...

This is a 'spot the car' moment.....

...its about a third of the way down the left side of the slope from the pointy top....yes, they drive four wheel drive vehicles all over the dunes at the edge of the desert....its a tourist thing....or go out on a dune buggy....or a camel ride....or a motorbike....

Remember that not particularly well-coloured Seebohms earlier....try this one....a cracking full on male in breeding plummage to wow the birds....literally....

....and back to a Common Redstart.....rather stunning....

Ravens....there was a couple hanging around every day, nice to see such a bird so much....on one particular day a flock of 15-20 flew over....probably juvenile or non-breeding birds....but these are Brown-necked Ravens....

...yep...another sun rise...and you can see the Algerian ridge even better....

.......and....heres a slightly different toad....

Back to mammals....one morning this guy was running around....a North African Hedgehog....now that I really didnt expect at all....

Well...the sun rises....and so it must set.....

Dove day......this one is a Laughing Dove...a local breeding bird.....

...and a Turtle Dove.....on its way north.....

Melodious Warbler....Icterines will be heading further east to migrate and also heading much further north than this guy that will hang out in southern Europe....

The name tells you where its going.....Subalpine Warbler.....so you know where to look if you go on holiday....

Colours of the desert....

Iberian Chiffchaff.....

Black-eared Wheatear...

And a Bonellis Warbler....

Ringing Ticks

Bonellis Warbler, Seebohms Wheatear, Black-eared Wheatear, White-crowned Wheatear, Woodchat Shrike, Iberian Chiffchaff, Blue-cheeked Bee-eater, Turtle Dove, Subalpine Warbler, Saharan Olivaceous Warbler, Laughing Dove, Western Olivaceous Warbler, Melodious Warbler, Orphean Warbler

Birds I have previously ringed

Northern Wheatear, Nightingale, Common Redstart, Barn Swallow, House Sparrow, Collared Dove, Willow Warbler

The 'others' on the list for the trip

Great-grey Shrike, Brown-necked Raven, Feral Pigeon, Blackbird, Red-rumped Swallow, House Martin, European Bee-eater, Woodpigeon, House Bunting, Kestrel, Desert Sparrow, Yellow Wagtail, Bluethroat, Spotted Sandgrouse, Mahgreb Lark, Trumpeter Finch, Crag Martin, Wryneck, Booted Eagle, Hoopoe Lark, Greenfinch, Fulous Babbler, Bulbul, Thick-billed Lark.....and on the way back to Ouarzazate I stopped for a brief look at the Tagdilt Track....Red-rumped Wheatear....fabulous last bird of the trip.