Sheringham Beach Front, Norfolk, UK, 27-Dec-2010

1:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Protocol: Traveling
0.5 mile(s)
Comments: Drive up the coast with Kim & mum.
Weather: cold, dark, chill wind (NE).
6 species

Northern Lapwing X
Common Ringed Plover X
Ruddy Turnstone X
Black-headed Gull X
Mew Gull X
Herring Gull X

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)

Hampstead Cemetery & UCL Sports Ground, London, UK, 19-Dec-2010

1:50 PM - 3:00 PM
Protocol: Traveling
1.0 mile(s)
Weather: cold, cloudy, snow on the ground after previous days fall.
13 species

Black-headed Gull X
Herring Gull X
Eurasian Jay X
Common Magpie X
Great Tit X
Blue Tit X
European Robin X
Eurasian Blackbird X
Redwing X
Song Thrush 1 in large yew tree.
Mistle Thrush X
European Greenfinch X
European Goldfinch X

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)

Bunn's Lane Waxwings - Ringing Details.

After sending in the details of the ringed waxwing that I encountered, via a link from a Birdguides article, I was very pleased to receive some detailed feedback from Raymond Duncan project coordinator. Below is the email he sent me:

Thanks very much indeed for taking the time and trouble to report this colour-ringed waxwing. Fantastic photograph always a welcome bonus. Well done. See ringing details below.

NW50411	05/11/10	Allenvale Cemetery, Aberdeen	3f	WB/LC/EF/DR
NW50411	18/12/10	Bunn's Lane, Mill Hill, North-West London. NW7 2EX	3f	M Hunt	643km SSE

The ringers that day Lindsay, Walter, Derek and Euan will all be very pleased to hear about this bird. This is the first to be reported from the 17 they ringed that day. They caught a Swedish ringed juvenile that day also, only for it to kill itself against a window a week later!

Your sighting is one of several very far south so early compared to previous invasions. We have also had 2 reported together in Southampton yesterday and 2 in Kent this past week.

Although this is partly down to a very large invasion coinciding with only a medium rowan crop (in Aberdeen any way) I think the snow has also indirectly played a significant part in these movements. Snow doesn’t really bother waxwings as their food is always accessible but the masses of thrushes and wood pigeons driven onto the berries has depleted the available favoured berry sources very rapidly up here in Aberdeen, forcing the waxwings to move on quicker than usual.

It is really great to get colour ring sightings like this which all add to the story, which is becoming a particularly interesting and different one to previous invasions. All thanks to observers like yourself for making the time and effort to record and report these things.

Thanks very much again.
Best wishes,
Raymond Duncan
(On behalf of Grampian Ringing Group)

Great to know that the sighting was appreciated & that it adds to knowledge of this charismatic species. He also asked to use my photo for future project updates, bulletins & talks!

Bunn's Lane, Mill Hill, London, 18/12/2010

10:45-11:15am. Weather: cold, snowing & increasing in heaviness.

I'd been checking the London Birds Wiki & was pleased to see the waxwings apparently getting closer & closer. After reports from the past couple of days of them in nearby Mill Hill it was too good an opportunity to pass up despite the warnings of dire consequences for people travelling in the snow due to the usual staggering un-preparedness of the whole country to tackle 3 inches of snow!

The snow began to fall as I set-off & was quite heavy by the time I picked up Sian from Colindale tube stop. Undeterred we ploughed on round the corner, & almost as soon as we reached the reported postcode, NW7 2EX, I spotted activity from high trees behind a row of houses there. I parked up in a side-street, scanned the trees & realised straightaway that there were approximately 30 Bohemian Waxwing at the top of the trees.



We got out of the car for a closer look & to take some photos & focussed on the high trees, however we soon saw a few take flight & realised they were headed for a small berry tree right behind us, & as we turned to face this tree noticed that it already had a few waxwings munching on the berries! For the next 20 minutes we watched from a few metres away as flocks of a dozen or so commuted between the tall birches behind the houses down to the road-side berry tree where they greedily scoffed the berries. They were very mobile & often seemed disturbed by the normal flow of the traffic passing by. At one point they were joined by an equally hungry Mistle Thrush.



Eventually the waxwings did what turned out to be one final commute before all heading off east, & though we waited for 5-10 minutes they didn't reappear. The snow continued falling heavily so we decided to head off before total chaos erupted on the roads.

When I got home & examined my photos I noticed one that was colour-ringed & reported it to the ring.ac website.



All-in-all a very satisfactory little trip out. These were Sian's first ever waxwings & my first in 23 years; my previous sighting was of a solitary bird in Galashiels, Scotland, 3rd January 1987!

Hampstead Cemetery and UCL Sports Grounds, London, 12/12/2010

12:40-13:50pm. Weather: cold, progressively gloomy but a touch of blue-sky, still.

Afternoon visit to the patch, quite wintry & with signs displayed around the cemetery notifying of "scrub management".



I had already noticed removal of some vegetation on a previous visit, but I hope these signs aren't ominous for the thicker, more productive patches around the cemetery.



It would be a real shame if the place was completely stripped out & sanitised, not to mention disastrous for the bird-life.



Entrance:
Woodpigeon - entering the park, plucking at berries; the first of many.
Chaffinch - over.
Blackbird.

South-side:
Black-Headed Gull - a few drifted over.
Blue Tit, Crow, Magpie.
Goldcrest - one typically flitting amongst a pine tree.
Ring-Necked Parakeet - one over heading west.
Robin, Goldfinch - one over.
Herring Gull - a couple over.
Great Tit, Starling - one over.
Green Woodpecker - one, nice & bright up from the grass then out on a dead tree branch.
Wren - buzzed low into undergrowth.
Great-Spotted Woodpecker - flew up to the dead tree the green woodpecker was on causing a few calls of consternation from it, then the green flew off.
Jay, Coal Tit.

UCL Sports Grounds:
Common Gull - 3 feeding in the field, 1 flying about.
Black-Headed Gull - 4 feeding. Magpie - 8 feeding.

East-side.
House Sparrow - 3 males in bramble-patch.
Greenfinch - several around the cemetery.
Long-Tailed Tit - feeding party.
Mistle Thrush - one atop a tree next to Fortune Green, then as I looked at that I noticed one much closer in a tree, near the garden of remembrance with a redwing & a couple of greenfinch.
Redwing - one with the mistle thrush, then 10 sat in a tree nearby & several more in other trees as I left.

25 species.

Updates

Avid & regular readers may have noticed the lack of new posts recently. My last post was from back in July & even then it did not include much detail of the outing. Since then organising & actually attending my wedding & subsequent honeymoon took over so that there has been no time to spend on the blog. Whenever I did manage a few hours I decided that I wanted to change its name & its layout to add more content. Unfortunately that wasn't as easy as I had hoped because of the fiddly & annoying way that Google manages its accounts. I had to spend a lot of time changing blog & site ownership, & moving photos & documents even before I was able to change the blog template. I have now completed most if not all of that & can now start to actually update the blog! As I do I will back-date the posts so they are posted in the month that I actually went out (I like the month count on the sidebar) rather than having all of the posts under December. After that it should be back to business as usual & I will also be adding more of the resources I use to the blog as well.

Update 2-Dec-2011: I finally finally got round to posting some updates & as you will see it's down to my discovery of eBird. I'm very late to the party but it's pretty good & allows me to email each checklist, which I then post here, as I build up my life list on their website. If it would only allow me to publish my list by clickable species & locations it would be the complete solution for me. It allows you to browse your own data in this way but it's not publicly accessible...yet: hopefully they'll add that soon. Enjoy.