Patch of the Day - Patch birding (over rather too many years) – Alastair Forsyth

I’ve pretty much always been a patch watcher, I don’t have the temperament for twitching it seems, finding the whole activity frustrating, irritating and usually (in my case) futile, I rarely seem to see what I go to twitch.

My first proper patch was Bough Beech Reservoir in Kent, but that was a patch which belonged to other folk too. I also spent a lot of time at Dungeness but that didn’t really seem like a patch (despite it having The Patch). Then I moved out of the South of England again and I was asked to do some survey work on a corner of the Derwent Ings. That was more like a patch, and although I didn’t visit it that often, it was a special place that was rarely birded by anyone else. I found a Firecrest there one day, that was the birding highlight, but I best remember it for the stoat family I watched playing in front of me for half an hour one sunny afternoon, they were almost running over my legs at times, and for the roe deer fawn that I chanced upon one evening.

I moved to Leeds, then spent a year and a half in Kathmandu. Our Patan roof top was ace for raptor watching, and then when we moved into the city itself our tiny garden held gems like Blyth’s Reed Warbler, Dusky Warbler and Olive-backed Pipit, but I wasn’t there long enough to really establish a patch.

We came back to Yorkshire and bought a place in the valleys, near Hebden Bridge; and this is where the madness began. For some reason I decided I would put in most of my birding effort in the area I could walk to around our house. For eleven years I birded Withen’s Clough.  Towards the end of this time I did venture further afield, weekends at Filey and Flamborough, and vismig at the nearby Baitings Reservoir but for the first five years at least, other than the odd trip abroad, I was birding Withen’s Clough.  And what, you might be thinking, was the outcome of this lunacy, what were the star birds? Over eleven years I watched Tree Pipit and Whinchat populations crash, although Ring Ouzel remained steady (they’ve subsequently pretty much gone I’m told). I enjoyed nesting Merlins from our kitchen window. I got excited about the occasional Marsh and Hen Harriers, I watched Raven and Nuthatch colonise and Yellowhammer hang on. I discovered breeding Grasshopper Warblers, Long-eared and Short-eared Owls. My best migrants were Spotted Redshank, Jack Snipe, Bar-tailed Godwit and a brilliant trumpet tooting Bullfinch. One winter we were swamped with redpolls but I just could not nail the Arctic that I was pretty certain was amongst them. And one magical afternoon my gull roost served up a Caspian Gull (which I was asked to submit and it was then summarily rejected; rarity committees, pah! I ask you…), this before the days when carrying a bird snapping digital camera was really possible let alone my habit, as it is today. So that was Withen’s Clough. The thing was the patch was around our home, everything I saw “counted” and rarity was relative. There is something very attractive about birding like this.

We moved to North Yorkshire and I established three  patches, one around our home again, one at Kettleness on the coast and one at Scaling Dam Reservoir. Now this was a bit more like it you’ll be thinking. Well yes it was in many ways. And the full story can be read here: http://whitbybirding.blogspot.co.uk/  because by then blogging had come along. The house and garden patch was especially interesting, probably more for invertebrates than birds, I just wish I’d bought a proper moth trap. The birding  garden list got to 71, and included Great Grey Shrike and Goshawk, and the tetrad to 90.

Four years in North Yorkshire and the feet got itchy. The birding was pretty good, but maybe we could do better. A chance came up to work on Orkney and we went for it. Louise chose our home patch, because she came up and bought the house whilst I stayed in Yorkshire working and looking after the girls. I just saw the pictures and reckoned it would be ok. I don’t think I could have chosen better, well something on Start Point might have been good but getting to work might have been tricky. Although we’re as far from the sea as you can be on Orkney, about 8km, we’re in a sheltered spot with mature Sycamore trees, mostly in our neighbour’s garden, and a great view over several lochs and lochans. We have the moors behind us to the north, and the wetlands and grazing below us to the south. Despite the distance from the coast, the trees bring the migrants in, our feeders hold birds here and bring them to view, and the lochs and lochans provide plenty of good habitat to search for waders and ducks. I also have a patch on the coast, Palace and the Brough of Birsay, and I’ll define that for the Patchwork Challenge too as I’m going to give that a bit of welly next year. It has huge potential, despite being on the north-west corner of Mainland (Orkney), but it is seriously underwatched.

Despite the number of rare birds found on Orkney each year they do not generally just fall into your lap. The impressive lists of super-rares on North Ronaldsay and South Ronaldsay, in particular,  are a testament to hard graft. Most of Orkney has high potential but there are relatively few observers for a place with a lot of choice spots for birding. The reason that I’ve seen some pretty decent birds from my home patch is that I’m giving it regular scrutiny and the bins are never far from hand. Also, making the effort to drive the 10 or 15 minutes to Palace and The Brough when the weather is right, or even when it isn’t, and then spending time about does bring results. This year’s been pretty good, and that’s with some quite significant lapses, so I’m gearing up for a patch race with myself between my two patches, and with the rest of you in 2013.

My full Orkney birding story so far is told here: http://literateherringthisway.blogspot.co.uk/

Patch of the Day: Stornoway, Outer Hebrides - Tristan ap Rheinallt

Locals often claim that fuel in the Outer Hebrides is the most expensive in Europe. I don’t know if that’s actually true, but the fact that the cost of filling up my car now runs into three figures means I have to think twice before clocking up the miles on birding trips around my island. Fortunately, the Patchwork Challenge gives me a chance to see this as an opportunity rather than a limitation: an opportunity to explore my local patch more intensively and do plenty of birding on foot from my house.

The harbour

So much for the background; what about the patch itself? It’s located in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis in the far northwest of Scotland. Stornoway is a town best known to birders for its gulls—and with reason. The harbour area is a recognised hot-spot for white-winged gulls, and numbers reached an all-time high last winter, when 60 or more Iceland Gulls could be seen from one spot during January. Very roughly, the town is sandwiched between two areas of sea, one to the south (opening out from the harbour) and one to the northeast. Getting both of these into a 3 km² local patch involved a fair amount of acrobatics with the mapping tool, but I didn’t feel I had much choice. The south side had to be included because of its potential for gulls, the list of species seen in the past including American Herring, Ross’s, Ivory, Bonaparte’s and Laughing. The north side was equally if not more important because I needed a vantage point over Broad Bay, which is where divers, Slavonian Grebes and seaduck (Long-tailed, Eider, scoters) concentrate in the winter, although some of these species can also be seen in smaller numbers around the harbour. I imagine that both the north and south sides might produce seabirds such as shearwaters and petrels in the right conditions, but this is a bit of an unknown quantity for the moment.



Stornoway gulls

Between the town and Broad Bay on the northeast side is a large estuary bordered in parts by saltmarsh, and separated from the sea by two narrow spits formed by sand dunes. The estuary has breeding terns of three species, which attract skuas; it has a good-sized wintering flock of Wigeon together with smaller numbers of other ducks; and at times it holds plenty of waders and gulls. Adjacent to the estuary are fields that have undergone various levels of improvement and have a decent variety of birds. Some of them become quite wet in autumn and attract Black-tailed Godwit and Ruff as well as various common waders that are shared with the estuary. They also provide feeding for growing numbers of Greylag Geese, which in autumn can be accompanied by the odd Pinkfoot or Barnacle Goose. Geese also migrate overhead in the right conditions and are occasionally forced down by bad weather, though they never stay long.

The estuary

All in all, it’s a pretty good local patch, and it certainly holds a greater variety of species than the rest of the Isle of Lewis, both in winter and in summer. However, I’m not convinced that I or anyone else has ever done it full justice, in part because the headlands and open coasts elsewhere on the island are so tempting when it comes to looking for migrants. Take waders, for instance. In recent autumns American waders have turned up on the Isle of Lewis, as elsewhere in the Hebrides, in numbers that would have seemed inconceivable only a few years ago, yet hardly any of them have been found in the Stornoway area. In fact, the rarest wader I’ve ever come across in my patch was a Little Ringed Plover: a very good bird in a western Scottish context, though worth no more than two measly points in the Patchwork Challenge. After that, I have found a Buff-breasted Sandpiper, and … well, not a lot else. Better birds must surely turn up from time to time, and I’m hoping I might get lucky in 2013.

Wintery Stornoway

On the west side of Stornoway are Stornoway Castle Grounds, aka Stornoway Woods. These are both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, as the only area of mature woodland in the whole of the Outer Hebrides, they have several breeding species that can be difficult or even impossible to find elsewhere: Grasshopper Warbler, Whitethroat, Treecreeper, Blue Tit and Long-tailed Tit, for example. They also attract migrants and transient visitors such as Waxwings, winter thrushes, redpolls, Siskins and Crossbills. The downside is that because they are so extensive, searching for rarities is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I have spent a lot of time in the castle grounds and to date the best bird I have seen (by far) is a Red-rumped Swallow. Last year I was totally gutted when a visiting birder found a Red-eyed Vireo that promptly disappeared, never to be seen again. This was in fact the second Red-eyed Vireo to be recorded in the Castle Grounds over the years, the other being well before my time. Also before my time was a Blackpoll Warbler that turned up in a small plantation near the estuary. These are the only American passerines to have been positively identified in my local patch, and the only ones ever on the Isle of Lewis, I believe, except for the famous Purple Martin.

Castle grounds

Many of the birds that nest in the castle grounds disperse into adjacent gardens in winter. My own garden is one of these. There are plenty of trees in and around it, so I get visits from various woodland species. Discounting sporadic arrivals of Waxwings, the only half-decent birds I have had there are a Yellow-browed Warbler and a fly-over Mistle Thrush (a local rarity). Talking of fly-overs, both Golden and White-tailed Eagles drift over Stornoway from time to time. The latter, if I manage to see one, should give me a useful six points in the Patchwork Challenge and help compensate for the fact that I certainly shan’t be getting any Great Tits or Magpies or Great Spotted Woodpeckers as they (together with several other species common elsewhere) are totally absent from the island.

To date, my best find in the patch has been a Cattle Egret, the fourth Scottish record of a species that at the time (2007) was still a BB rarity. I reckon I have seen about 140 species in total in the area, and there are still some obvious gaps on the seabird side. I don’t suppose I shall do particularly well in the Patchwork Challenge, certainly not as well as I would if I lived near the Butt of Lewis, where the number of species might be less but the chances of finding scarce and rare birds much higher. However, I reckon that a bit of friendly competition will motivate me to get out more, to see more, and maybe, just maybe, find something that will help me get over that vireo.  

Jan 1st kicks off in Stornoway - Tristan ap Rheinallt

Although there were showers around this morning, I decided to stick with my plan to use the car as little as possible for patchwork, so I set off on foot to make a start on my year list. There was a nasty northwesterly blowing and it was bloody cold, but I didn’t let this put me off. 

My first stop to scan the estuary produced a second-winter Iceland Gull. It seemed right that this Stornoway speciality should give me my first opportunity to score multiple points for a species, and it was only when filling in the spreadsheet afterwards that I discovered that my second species for the day/year, Hooded Crow, also gave me two points. Not that I’m complaining, of course. Some way farther on I spotted a couple of Pinkfeet among the Greylags, but as I was standing watching them the mother of all squalls arrived from nowhere and within minutes I was soaked to the skin, waterproofs notwithstanding. So it was back home at a trot for second breakfast and then out again, in the car this time. 

Back at the estuary I saw most of the usual ducks and waders, and then a trudge across a birdless saltmarsh brought me to Broad Bay, where I was able to add useful species like Great Northern Diver, Slavonian Grebe, Common Scoter, Eider and Long-tailed Duck; I even got two points for a Shag. The stream that follows the edge of the airport brought the only real surprise of the day: a female Pintail in with a flock of Teal and Mallard. I don’t remember recording this species in the patch before and it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s the only one I see this year. 

Then it was down to the harbour, where I picked up a group of ten Black-throated Divers and a distant Gannet way out to sea. I finished the afternoon in Stornoway Castle Grounds, which was (or seemed to be) devoid of birds. I was about to give up and go home for a well-deserved cup of coffee when I heard a Chaffinch, my 50^th bird and 60^th ‘species point’ of the day. Unfortunately, I reckon there’s only about another 25 species that are more or less guaranteed over the next couple of months, but on the other hand there’s always the possibility of a big influx of gulls that could bring in something interesting. Here’s hoping...  

Jan 1st, Hinderclay, Andrew Goodall

January 1^st Hinderclay and the Little Ouse Fens.

Considering recent days the weather was fantastic with a light breeze and clear blue skies.

Recording began at dawn with bird table visitors and a few fly overs recorded.  The usual’s included Blackbird, Collared Dove, Jackdaw, Robin, Dunnock and Starling.  Greenfinch and Chaffinch soon joined the queue, followed by House Sparrow and Blue Tit.

We set off to walk down to the fen, a mosaic of small patches of land, actively managed by a community group called ‘The Little Ouse Headwaters Project’ and including:

Betty's Fen

Blo'Norton Fen

Broomscot Common

The Frith

Blo'Norton Little Fen

Hinderclay Fen

The Lows

Parkers Piece & Bleyswycks Bank

Scarfe Meadows

Webbs Fen

They can be found adjacent to the villages of Hinderclay, Thelnetham, Blo Norton and Garboldisham in Suffolk.  Walking across the fields we flushed a few wintering Skylark and a flock of 21 Linnet and 4 Yellowhammer.  One species that is not too common on the patch is Mute Swan so I was pleased to see two birds fly over.

At the end of Hinderclay Fen is a small slurry lagoon, which has held wintering Green Sandpiper but not today, just Moorhen and Wren.  Another less common species was a fly over Common Buzzard as we walked towards Blo Norton Fen and on Webbs Fen a Little Egret was working its way through waterside vegetation.

The River Little Ouse was in flood making several paths impossible to walk along even in wellies.

There were just two Mallard on Webbs Fen and a Jay calling from nearby willow scrub.  On the return walk back home I had the bird of the day. A Red Kite flew low over the field occasionally twisting and catching the sunlight. It looked stunning. Sadly only two points I t was worth 22 but I don’t set the rules!

Send in your scores!

You'll see over on the right a form for entering your January scores. Exciting!

It should be pretty self explanatory, but anyway, here's a few words....

You can enter a score as many times as you want, but it would be useful if we could get one score a month from folk at least. The score you should enter is the cumulative year list - so each time you enter a score, please enter the 'whole thing' rather than just the new points acquired. We will update you all with the scores at least once a month and will have a league table in the sidebar as of the end of the month.

Cant think of anything else worth saying now, but if you have any questions, drop us a line at

patchworkchallenge@gmail.com

Patch of the Day - This is Orgreave, Mark Reader

Todays Patch of the Day comes from Mark Reader, who patches at Orgreave in South Yorkshire. More importantly, he also set up the Foot it challenge. If you're interested in the Patchwork challenge then foot it will be, quite literally, right up your street...Mark takes over from here...

My patch lies to the southeast of Sheffield on the border with Rotherham and is probably better known for the bloodiest of battles during the 1984/85 miners strike. The ghosts of the battle are still there but the industry has long vanished.

What lies there now are two lakes a very large area of grassland (though this is shrinking with the expanding housing development) and the much cleaner River Rother. The newest and probably last reclaimed mining site in South Yorkshire, this has been my patch for the last four years. During that period I've pretty much had it to myself, though its increasing habit for attracting local 'rare' and 'scarce' has rapidly lead to it becoming ever more popular. A total of 164 species have been recorded with an average of 135 each year since 2009. Self-found Highlights, I try and resist twitching anyone else's finds, so my patchwork total will mostly be self-found, have been Leach's Petrel, Ring-necked Duck, Lapland Bunting, Caspian Gull and Black Redstart, but as yet no BB rarities! I've put in about 300 visits to the patch this year, with dual visits almost everyday between March and October. Perhaps this year I'll get that 'rare'.

Over the years I've watched several sites in the Rother Valley. There's something about Orgreave that seems to pull in the birds, it appears to be on a through route and standing at the highest point you can see the edge of the Pennines to the west with Nottinghamshire to the east. On the face of it it's just a muddy shale lined lake with some sterile grassland, there must be something in the water...

New years day traditions.....

Being Scottish you would think that the main tradition I have on new years day is to sleep off a monsterous hangover or continue on with ‘hair of the dog’ but no, I let the alcoholic Scottish stereotype down badly. I go birding! I have spent the vast majority of my new years at my parent’s house in Whiteford and my dad has kindly woke me up at dawn to do some patch birding every year. I have enjoyed these days to varying degrees, from my pre-alcohol days and finding a snow goose to walking around drunk/badly hungover and remembering and seeing very little and desperately needing some sleep.

 

A cool and sobering new years day

We do a bit of planning prior to the day, what walks will lead to the most species? We scope out hard to see species in the days leading up to the 1^st. Inevitably it all goes a little wrong in the lead up and we find some hard to see species such as woodcock or brambling and foolishly hope to see them again on the 1^st but normally fail. I'm always optimistic and aim to see 50 species on the patch to start the year off with a bang but have never reached it and normally achieve about 40 species. I’m sure you will hear about my successes and failures on 1^st January 2013 on this blog.

N.B. We managed a respectable 47 species (54%) this year, highlights including a couple of tawny owls, a redpoll flock and a pair of goosanders.

We would love to hear about your first visit to the patch in 2013, a short paragraph is all thats needed (send them to patchworkchallenge@gmail.com) and we will post them on the blog to give everyone a taste of the year ahead.