White winger

Out with my brother today as he was down visiting.
Looked for the black guillemot off Seaview, but drew a blank on that one. However, a 1st winter Iceland gull passed by, out of blue, and headed west. Red-necked grebe, Slavonians, GN divers also seen.

Eagle owl? heard this evening locally. There is a falconry nearby! And the bro had a fly over coot (some nocturnal action).

BLACK GUILLEMOT - Solent/Springvale/Seaview

At the end of last year a black guillemot had been seen off Seaview. But it had only been seen briefly by one lucky observer and subsequently was seen leaving the area. Despite that part of the island getting fairly good coverage (by island standards anyway) seemingly nothing more came of it - though sightings of one in Hampshire suggest it's been on the move.

Fortunately it came back to Seaview.

As I was scanning across the solent, enjoying the odd slav grebe and GN diver; suddenly an auk flew in from the east and pitched in. It drifted with a slav grebe for a time. I got my scope on it and pretty much instantly thought it was a black guillemot, but it was distant and my identification of it was based mostly on its jizz; so I put the news out.

It soon took flight and again I noted the key features: as it banked it showed off its upper wing pattern with the distinguishable white patches clearly discernable.

Nice!

Edit: it was seen again with better pics and closer confirmatory views.

Shalfleet

Yesterday (18th) I had a look around the Shalfleet area. When my brother visited recently, and we'd drove passed the Shalfleet church just off the main road, he had remarked how good it looked for hawfinch, with its surrounding yews etc. Fast forward a couple of weeks and my first attempt at finding said bird there was successful, with at least one Hawfinch in the trees (cheers bro!). 

I also walked to the Quay for no particular reason other than I haven't done it for a very long time, probably not since we were nippers. And a casual scan across the Newtown river produced a male merlin perched in the sunshine - a lovely moment.

 

 

Local bit n bobs

 

Lone purple sandpiper - East Cowes esplanade

 

 

View at Gurnard

 

 

Red-necked grebe - Seaview

 

 

 



Ryde East sands

Today at low tide whilst checking through some gulls (with a white winger in mind) - I was slightly taken a back when suddenly a spoonbill was in my line of sight. Records away from Yarmouth, Newtown and Brading marshes are probably pretty scarce. Despite the numerous dog walkers nearby it seemed unperturbed and happily fed with the brent geese and gulls etc. A couple of sarnies present too.

 

spoonbill

 

 

sandwich tern

 

 

And caught up with the Brading White-fronted geese found today - 21 reported this morning; though somewhat difficult to count as they intermittently disappeared into the ditches/channels; I counted at least 19

 



New year

Having worked new years day for the last few years, it was nice this year to actually have the opportunity to get out and do a Jan 1st bird race type count - though due to a private matter - I didn't spend the whole day out in the field, thus ending it around 2pm. So my overall total wasn't particularly notable.

As the weather at the start of day was wet and blustery I started things at St Cath's. A sea watch there produced mainly red-throated divers, kittiwakes, auks and gannets; all moving west past the point.
Second stop was Fort Vic with more kittiwakes. Then Yarmouth and Newtown.
Ryde west sands and seaview, where I ended with a slavonian Grebe. Despite the iffy weather it was a good start to the year.

Today I went back to fort Vic as the weather again was stormy with westerlies. A diver (probably GN) pitched in, but due to the swell, it seemingly disappeared - though it did reappear and left east.

Second stop was Borthwood. Or Winford. Interestingly there have been quite a few reports of bramblings over-wintering in the area; and not just one or two as is more usual; but 60 to 100 have been estimated, a record count. There were certainly a lot feeding there today, but my casual count was a more modest 30 to 40. Impressive.

And finally: had to pay Brading a visit, what with four Cattle egrets and a glossy ibis being seen there the last few days. And as soon as I'd got out of the car I immediately saw all four egrets and the glossy. Plus a water pipit. Not too shabby.

 

Bramblings - In the fields south of Borthwood copse; East of Winford - an area that I'd never really explored before. But the 'set aside' has proved its worth to a variety of finches etc. Also good for wintering woodlark.

 

 

Brading - Cattle egrets and glossy ibis - bizarre - but now a seemingly normal sight?