The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a registered charity: England and Wales—No. 207076, Scotland No. SC037654

More stunning images from member Alan Baldry. The lapwing and sedge warbler

were photographed at Boyton and the turnstone at

Shotley.

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April 2015

GROUP LEADER’S REPORT from Chris Courtney

A s I write this the first signs of spring are few and far between, with just the

first few nascent buds in my garden hedgerow. Daffodils and tulips are pushing through, but are still yet to flower, although the first snowdrops and cro-cuses have already been out for a week. For birds and people alike this period of the ‘hungry gap,’ as witnessed by the di-minished quantity of vegetables in my weekly box from the Oak Tree Low Car-bon Farm, produced yesterday a garden first in the form of a first winter male reed bunting. It was foraging for seeds and enjoying my garden pond’s miniature reedbed, and by the look of it, the seeds on some of last year’s hemp agrimony. It was great to see such a wetland species in the garden, although we did once have a moorhen spend a day with us, so I guess now I should look out for a beardie, a bittern or even a passing marsh harrier…might have to wait a while though! As food in the wider countryside starts to run out, other less familiar species such as siskins can appear, a species I have only seen in my garden during late Febru-ary and especially March. This year how-ever, at the time of writing, the BTO’s year round Garden Birdwatch has report-ed very few. Out in the countryside, sis-kins particularly relish the seeds of alder and birch but, particularly in the UK, with the advent of widespread post-war coni-fer plantations the species has developed a particular liking for the seeds of the non-native sitka spruce. These changes over the past few decades have enabled this delightful finch to spread down into southern Britain and for it to have become the relatively familiar sight that it is today. Particularly wet years, which causes the

sitka spruce cones to close up, can also contribute to large influxes into our gar-dens as in 2007 and 2012. I have also recently put out my moth trap again, (although I know that some moth enthusiasts put theirs out all year round). The results for the first night were predict-ably not spectacular with small numbers of species predominated by the genus orthosia. These mostly small brown jobs can be swines to identify especially for a relative novice such as myself, such as some of the quakers and the aptly named drabs sometimes taking a dispro-portionate amount of time and effort to ID! Thankfully others are more readily recog-nized such as the wonderfully named He-brew character with a black mark similar to the Hebrew letter ‘nun’. Not to be con-fused with the even more exotically named but taxonomically unrelated seta-ceous Hebrew character, a species that does not take to the wing however, until May through to October. Bird song is now building up, with the first dunnocks and blackbirds having com-menced singing at the end of January, and by February song thrushes and their larger cousins the good old storm cock (mistle thrush), have started to lay claim anew to their territories. Others, such as robins where both sexes sing, maintain territories throughout the winter, so their somewhat forlorn and plaintive silvery notes can fortunately be heard even in the depths of the cold season. Another task in hand was to complete the erection of a little owl nest box in a loca-tion on the outskirts of town, where last year they bred in an ‘A’ frame box erected

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April 2015

for barn owls. A pair of barn owls had been found roosting on the first inspec-tion, although subsequently seemed to disappear. It is unlikely that the little owls had driven them away as they do not particularly compete ecologically, and they can happily nest in quite close prox-imity. But in the hope the barn owls will return, I thought this year I would give the little owls the opportunity of a splendid specially designed tunnel type box, alt-hough whether they will appreciate this remains to be seen! A popular and char-ismatic species that everyone seems to adore, despite their being a species intro-duced to the UK in the late 1800s. Pre-sent naturally just across the Channel, the species does not by any account have a detrimental ecological effect within Britain, and with recent declines in this country and across western Europe, it is worth helping to conserve the species where we can (and East Anglia in any case represents a relative stronghold). Later in the year, I am looking forward to continuing into my second season as a licensed barn owl monitor, which pro-vides a great opportunity to get out and discover more about the wildlife in the countryside around us, as well as to meet and chat to some of the landowners and estate workers about wildlife and practical conservation. Meanwhile planning for the brilliant ‘Spring Wood Day’ on May Bank Holiday Monday (may the 4th be with you!) is well underway, so if you haven’t previously had the experience why not make 2015 your year?! Set in the superb array of integrated habitats that comprises the Local Nature Reserves and County Wild-life sites of Spring Wood, (ancient wood-

land), Kiln Meadow, Millennium Wood, and Belstead Brook Country Park. Spe-cies seen on my guided bird walks have included: nightingale, kingfisher, bull-finch, willow warbler, common white-throat, reed warbler, garden warbler, reed bunting, yellowhammer, kestrel, sparrowhawk, hobby, buzzard, as well some of the first swifts of the year. Plus with a host of family activities, wood-craft demonstrations and activities, a Maypole, morris dancers, folk music, home-made cakes, fire-cooked spuds, storytelling, horse logging, guided walks, and stands from Suffolk Wildlife Trust, Butterfly Conservation, Suffolk Amphibian and Reptile Group, and the RSPB there is pretty much something for everyone! If you would like to help in a practical way, rotas are being drawn up particularly for stints on the cake stand and for tend-ing the fire and cooking spuds. Qualified first-aiders are also being sought; so if you think you might be able to spare an hour or so of your time on 4 May, please do get in touch with any member of the committee. So do have a great spring, which by the time you read this will, hopefully, have well and truly sprung. As usual at RSPB Ipswich Local Group we have a full and varied programme of walks and events to entice you outdoors, (see pages 26 & 27 for details) while indoors on the telly, ‘Springwatch’ will once again be in resi-dence at Minsmere, where if you look carefully and on ‘Unsprung’ you may just spy a lurking lesser-spotted Judy, a melo-dious Mick or a tufted Tim. Have a great summer.

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April 2015

O ur third visit to Costa Rica was in November, during the dry season.

Costa Rica is rich in wildlife, being one of the pioneers in national parks and now getting its main income from ecotourism. It is also the safest and most stable Cen-tral American country. We went with Greentours, whose itinerary included five wildlife lodges spread throughout the country. Bosque de Paz was the closest to the capital, San Jose, and has 1,000 hectares of cloud forest with long trails with the main buildings and cabins close to a bubbling river where we soon identi-fied American dipper. At evening the feeding area across the water attracted large black guans down from the trees plus coatis and a single paca. A barred forest falcon perched nearby and swal-lows roosted close to our cabins. The hummingbird feeders have attracted over 20 species and we identified: violet sabrewing, green-crowned brilliant, purple-throated mountain gem, green hermit and magenta-throated wood-star; amazing birds with beautiful names. Our walks produced long-tailed silky flycatchers, orange-billed trogons, in-credible glasswing butterflies and my favourite, the iridescent blue morphos. Our second lodge was close to the Nica-raguan border at Laguna Lagartos - lake of the caimans. Here we saw the star birds, great green macaws, flying in to roost and also within the adjoining rainfor-est. Here also we interrupted a slender anole dispute on a vine and found three small frogs: rocket, Bransford's litter and the superb strawberry poison dart. The banana feeders attracted both keel-billed and chestnut-mandibled tou-cans, collared aracaris, Montezuma's oropendula and large great curassows

on the grass beneath. The most atmos-pheric time was late evening watching from the long balcony, with a loud chorus of frogs and cicadas, life-bonded scarlet macaws (a maximum of 25 counted) fly-ing to their roost and acrobatic short-tailed nighthawks hunting around the trees. A captured boa constrictor was released and much photographed. The manager, Adolfo, invited us to his garden in the nearby village and there the bana-na feeders attracted too many species to list, but including tanagers, euphonias, orioles, aracaris, saltators and finally a large flock of orange-chinned para-keets. La Ensenada, on the Pacific side, was next, memorable early on for an incredi-bly close blood-curdling scream in the middle of the night. No one had the cour-age to investigate and we concluded it might have been a puma catching prey, since this was a working cattle ranch, which would attract this large cat. The second incident was a scorpion sting to one of our group during a five hour boat trip on the Rio Tempisque. To our shame we were more interested in taking photos of this impressive beast than ministering to him but my wife Marie did apply some ointment and he soon recovered. This trip produced brown pelicans, magnificent frigatebirds, white ibis, black-crowned night herons, wood storks, black skim-mers, roseate spoonbills, royal terns, laughing gulls, willets and a single whimbrel, whilst a mangrove black hawk lured close by the boatman's fish offering. Nearby was a very different and very hot habitat (working salt pans) with willet, western sandpiper, whimbrel, yellow-crowned night heron and ele-

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WILDLIFE IN COSTA RICA from Richard Stewart

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April 2015

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gant black-necked stilts. A final memory was of opportunist magpie jays raiding our meals from the nearby kitchen. On the journey to Savegre we stopped to admire the enormous American crocodiles on the mudflats beneath the Tarcoles Bridge and dodged traffic on the busy Cuerro de la Muerte road to watch a three-toed sloth in an over-hanging tree. This road took us up to high paramo habitat at 3,300 metres and later we ventured higher to discover short colourful flora, the volcano hum-mingbird and on our return called in at the Hummingbird Café and found the superb fiery-throated hummingbird. However, our main focus was on finding the resplendent quetzals, one of the world's 'great birds' with the male an incredible sight with its long tail stream-ers. Thankfully they tend to visit differ-ent avocado trees each year, giving farmers an income of a dollar per visitor and a good reason to preserve the trees. The economy of this area is heavily dependent on this one bird and our guide Marino, who has lived in the area all his life, took us on several trips, with good close views of males, females and juveniles. Marino also made sure we appreciated other birds, describing the blue-crowned chlorophine as 'one of the joys of paradise.' A night walk led to a good spotlight view of a bare-shanked screech owl and on this same stretch we saw another resplendent quetzal, which means we have now seen this magnificent bird at four different sites in Costa Rica.

Our final lodge gave us the longest number of days, on the remote Osa peninsula. Here the wildlife was so rich that I would like to make it the subject of a separate article, hopefully in the next edition.

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April 2015

W ho gave the bearded tit its com-mon name? Come on, own up! Be-

cause let’s face it, it’s not the most accu-rate name, for the reasons outlined in the title of this article. Panurus biarmicus, a bird guaranteed to enliven any day in the field, is not a member of the tit family at all, but recent scientific research has re-vealed it is a unique songbird that be-longs in its own family. For many years this species was ‘lumped’ into the parrot-bill family Paradoxornithidae, which those clas-sicists amongst you will rec-ognise as meaning ‘paradox bird.’ Previ-ous to this the parrot-bills had themselves been ‘lumped’ in with the Paridae, the tits and chicka-dees, hence the persisting common name. Parrotbills are a family restricted to east and southeast Asia, and their fa-milial relationships with other birds are far from clear (current thinking tends towards placing parrotbills in the same family as Old World warblers Sylvidae or Old World babblers Timaliidae). Back in 1982, the nine-year-old me re-ceived The Readers Digest Book of Brit-ish Birds from my father for Christmas, a book I still have. Amongst other things, it is an interesting snapshot of the state of

the nation’s avifauna at that time; the red kite was restricted to Wales, the red-backed shrike was still a widespread breeding species, and the little egret was marked up as a real rarity. In this book, Panurus biarmicus is named the bearded reedling. Taxonomically speak-ing, the avoidance of the t-word is a good start. Maybe this unique bird should be regarded as the only member of the reedling family. So with that sorted, we move seamlessly on to the elephant in

the room that is facial hair. Which-ever way you look at it, male beard-ed reed-lings don’t have

beards, rather they have those classic Zapata moustaches so beloved of Mexi-can revolutionaries and, every November, charity fundraisers. I have heard of lan-guages that do not distinguish between types of facial hair, having the same word for both beards and moustaches, but this is English, where we do, as this very sen-tence makes abundantly clear (incidentally at the other end of the spec-trum, Albanian is said to have 27 different words for moustaches alone, but I di-gress). So who decided this bird was

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THEY DON’T HAVE BEARDS, AND THEY AREN’T TITS from Tim Kenny

A pair of pinging Zapatas at Minsmere, 24 January 2015. Picture—Tim Kenny

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April 2015

bearded? The Russian name translates directly to ‘moustached tit,’ whilst the French is panure à moustaches, literally ‘moustached reedling.’ If it’s good enough for our friends across La Manche, it will do for me. Therefore I’m going with moustached reedling. The problem with that name is that it could raise confusion with the mous-tached warbler of southern Europe and southwest Asia, as well as being a bit of a mouthful. So why not think of a different common name? Well that, dear reader, is precisely what I have done. Here’s some ide-as so please pick your favourite. The bearded tit (or moustached reedling) is fre-quently located by the call, a dis-tinctive ‘pinging’ sound like two coins being flicked together. Indeed this is what led me to the handsome fellows in the pic-tures above on a winter’s day at Mins-mere this year. There are birds that have been named after calls before (chiffchaff, zitting and tink-tink cistico-las to name just three) so why not this one? Added to the style of moustache sported by the males, does anyone fancy ticking off the pinging Zapata? Or may-be the blue-headed coinbird? Ringing reedbird?

I can hear my mother, in a broad York-shire accent that she doesn’t actually have, calling me a ‘daft apoth’ (I never did work out what an ‘apoth’ was). So let’s scrap everything I’ve just written and have a think about why the wildly inaccu-rate moniker of bearded tit still persists in English. I have a couple of theories. Firstly, an economy of syllables. In the white heat of excitement that accompa-nies sightings or hearings of these lovely birds, it takes less time to blurt out three syllables than four or five. Indeed, as

birders are wont to do, this is very often short-ened to ‘beardie,’ thereby los-ing a further syllable. It ties in with another the-ory of mine; we ornithol-ogists like to shorten spe-cies names so we can spend less time saying

them and more time searching for them. Secondly, a generation thing. My interest in birds has rubbed off on at least one of my nephews, who is nine. And what do I say to him when I hear the ‘ping-ping’ over the reeds? Here’s a clue; it isn’t ‘Did you hear that? It’s a bearded reedling.’ My own upbringing has conditioned me to automatically use the prevailing ver-nacular name.

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Male Panurus biarmicus at Minsmere Picture—Tim Kenny

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April 2015

For the latest bird news please phone 09068 700 245. Calls to 09068 700245 cost 61p per minute plus network extras. Calls from mobiles and some networks may be considerably higher. Service provided by Birdline East Anglia, for en-quiries please call 07941333970. www.birdlineeastanglia.co.uk

INTERESTING BIRDS IN SUFFOLK THIS WINTER from Birdline East Anglia

Maybe, when all is said and done, it doesn’t really matter what we call these birds. The males, with their powder-blue heads, tawny bodies and 1970s ‘taches, are wonderful birds when seen well. The females, lacking the bright heads and face furniture, are just as lovely. Both sexes have beady creamy-yellow eyes which, particularly in the female, have a real glaring quality. Not only that, their

predominantly seed-eating diet of winter changes to mostly insectivorous in sum-mer, when there are more insects about, and the birds digestive systems change dramatically to accommodate this change in food. Next time you see one, forget about the inaccurate name and just enjoy one of Suffolk’s most treasured birds.

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Dates when present in brackets. December:

Four lesser white-fronted geese (released) confirmed by satellite tracking Minsmere RSPB (30) but seen at North Warren (31).

Surf scoter on River Stour from Stut-ton Ness with a great northern div-er, up to three Slavonian grebes and two velvet scoters. Slavonian Grebe on Alton Water (30). Green-winged teal at Orfordness NT (21).

Great grey shrikes at Berners Heath (3) and Santon Downham. Three shorelarks at Benacre Broad and then at Covehithe Broad. Great northern diver on Benacre Broad (5-18). Black-throated diver at Wal-berswick (4).

Up to nine tundra bean geese at Minsmere RSPB (5-7), 14 over

Orfordness NT (6) and up to 16 at North Warren RSPB (19).

Grey phalarope (4-5), waxwing (11) at Minsmere RSPB, glaucous gull at Oulton Broad (31), up to 60 twite at Dunwich and a little stint at Trimley Marshes SWT. Two trumpeter swans (escapees) at Boyton

Marshes RSPB.

January:

Surf scoter on River Stour from Stut-ton Ness with great northern diver, up to four Slavonian grebes and a velvet scoter. Black-necked grebe on Alton Water.

Turtle dove at Gunton (24-26). Three shorelark by Covehithe Broad. Great grey shrike at Santon Downham and six waxwings at Ipswich.

Four (released) lesser white-fronted geese (one radio-tagged) between Sudbourne Marsh and North Warren RSPB (until 3). Up to seven tundra bean geese at Sudbourne Marsh and North Warren RSPB and 24 tundra bean geese over Walberswick (15). Little stint and tundra bean goose at Trimley Marshes SWT. Two scaup at Beccles Quay.

Glaucous gulls at Oulton Water and near Great Livermere.

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April 2015

LAKENHEATH FEN NEWS from Katherine Puttick

W elcome to the February update from Lakenheath Fen. It’s nearly

spring already; reed buntings are in full song, and the marsh harriers have been sky-dancing on sunny days. It won’t be long before we have warmer, longer days, with sedge and reed warblers chattering in the reeds, and swallows and hobbies zipping around above them. I may be getting a little carried away with things, as we may yet get a few more cold spells, can’t hurt to be optimistic though! In preparation for the forth-coming sea-son, we’ve been busily ploughing through all the management tasks needed to keep the reserve in good condi-tion; read on to find out more! Out on the reserve We’ve planted a wildlife friendly hedge near the dipping pond, which has lots of native hedge plants, such as blackthorn, hawthorn and various rambling roses. This hedge, once mature, will provide an early nectar source for insects, as well as plenty of fruit for birds and mammals (and possibly the occasional foraging war-den!). I’m also hoping it will provide some nice shelter for the children’s area near the dipping pond, which we’ve also been trying to improve. More on that next time, as it’s a bit of a work in progress!

We’ve also been doing some more reed-cutting down the reserve. We’ve had a contractor with a digger which has a Bradshaw bucket on it. This type of bucket has blades on the digging edge, which cut the reeds either at ground level or below the water. The operator then piles the cut material in heaps, and we come along and try and burn it! This will be the last time we cut reed in this particular area for at least another 10 years or more. The aim now is to keep

the levels low in the cut compart-ment, graze it until late next year, then bring the water levels back up and let the reed re-colonise. Cut-ting reed on rotation in this way allows us to keep the reed at different stages which attracts a wider range of wildlife. It also

prevents too much leaf litter building, which can eventually raise the level of the reed bed and dry it out, which makes it unsuitable for bitterns and other wildlife that rely on a reedbed being wet! Next year, we’ll start cutting the next oldest bit of reed! Birds and other wildlife With the breeding season almost upon us, we were out and about early this morning to have a listen for bitterns, as we’ve had several reports of grunting bit-

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Reed cutting. Picture— Katherine Puttick

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April 2015

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terns (the grunts are a pre-curser to the fully fledged boom) in the last few weeks. I didn’t hear one myself (I was in the first reedbed - New Fen North), although three grunters were heard further down the re-serve. Two great white egrets are still around, usually on the washland, while a roost of 22 little egrets has been recorded in an area just off the reserve. Both of our resi-dent pairs of cranes have returned, after having an ex-tended break somewhere in the Fens, and are now regu-larly seen from Joist Fen view-point. Duck numbers have been good with up to 205 mallards, 21 shovelers, 163 teal, 44 tufted ducks, two pochards and 46 snipe. A single female ferruginous duck was seen with the tufties on a reedbed pool, that unfortunately can’t be seen from the viewpoints! Up to 71 whooper swans have also been roosting on the reserve. The marsh harrier roost peaked at 21 birds at the end of December. Up to two male hen harriers and a single ringtail have been roosting in the past few weeks. Single merlins, sparrowhawks and peregrines are also regularly seen in the late afternoon. A rough-legged buz-zard was around for a few days around the middle of February. A single red kite flew over the reserve on 27 January and 24 February. Barn owls are being seen

regularly, in fact at least four individual birds were seen this morning during our survey. Two chiffchaffs have been seen (and ringed) in Brandon Fen, along with the usual bramblings, siskins and redpolls. Water pipits are being seen regularly on the washland. Twelve corn buntings were recorded roosting at the eastern end of the reserve at the end of December. Various mammals have been very visible lately, including a small group (herd?) of

up to eight roe deer along the entrance track, along with two muntjacs. On my trav-els this morning, I was lucky enough to see two ot-ters playing,

in a ditch right next to the path in New Fen North, right where we strimmed a gap in the reeds!! They didn’t seem over-ly concerned by my being there as they splashed and rustled their way up the ditch. A lovely treat to start the day! With all this lovely wildlife to see, I hope you are now planning your trips to the reserve!! Hope to see you soon!

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Otter. Picture—Matt Walton

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April 2015

F ebruary is very much a transit month, with the winter birds starting to move

back to northern breeding grounds and the woods and fields becoming alive with bird song as the days lengthen and the sun increases its warmth. A recent walk round Spring Wood, Kiln Meadow, Bob-bits Lane meadows and the area stretch-ing along to Copdock showed how spring was arriving. Rooks were carrying nest-ing material to their nests on the electrici-ty pylons which cross this area. The area was alive with spring birdsong with the song of blackbird, song and mistle thrushes somehow drowning out the traffic hum from the A14 nearby. The mistle thrush always sings from a high post, its beautiful call ringing out across the meadows. In Spring Wood great spotted and green woodpeckers were actively drumming and displaying, flying through the wood and rides. Blue, great, and coal tits, robin, wren and dunnock were amongst other birds in song. In Kiln Lane meadow an over-wintering chiff-chaff called briefly. Crossing the A14 on the bridge and looking over to Wherstead woods a pair of buzzards were already on the wing. Other raptors noted includ-ed kestrel and sparrowhawk. On the coast spring is also arriving with the skylarks and meadow pipits now in song on Felixstowe Ferry Golf Course. On the top of the cliff at Clifflands car park six snow buntings have taken up residence and show very well. They in-clude four male birds now in brilliant white spring plumage, a real sight to be-hold. Offshore movements have been low with only the occasional red-throated diver noted this year. Parties of shelduck and Brent geese seem to pass offshore moving between the estu-

aries. The large flocks of Brent geese at King’s Fleet and Levington have become much more boisterous as the breeding season approaches with frequent squab-bles and dust ups. Within the next couple of weeks they will be moving back north again to their Arctic breeding grounds. It is very important that they feed up well before commencing this long journey so please ensure you or your dogs do not disturb them. At places like Levington and Felixstowe Ferry wader numbers are well down with many having departed northwards. Golden plover and lapwing numbers have plummeted with the re-maining birds now being in spring and summer plumage and looking magnifi-cent. A few dunlin and black-tailed godwit have also got their summer plum-age and make a fine sight. The call of the curlew can frequently be heard around the estuaries and saltings. It is a great pity so much breeding habitat of this icon-ic wader has been lost in Suffolk so that it is now a rare breeding species. Some non-breeding birds over-summer in Suf-folk so it can still be seen and heard through the spring and summer months. At the Port of Felixstowe the pair of pere-grines has taken up residence on one of the redundant dock cranes again. One morning just after entering Landguard reserve the male bird flew over me obvi-ously on a hunting mission. Other birds fled in terror!! The bird swooped on a bramble patch three times before a hap-less woodcock broke cover. It twice dived to ground level to avoid the pere-grine but then gained height and became a sitting target for the falcon, which took it in its talons after a high speed dive. Both peregrines were later watched on

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FROM WINTER IN TO SPRING from Stephen Marginson

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April 2015

their crane perch enjoying breast of woodcock for breakfast. This time of year is great for owl watching as they are active at dusk claiming territo-ries and partners. Recently at Levington I was entertained by two barn owls quar-tering the meadows for prey and two little owls up on the wires and doing hunting missions along the hedge rows and banks. Both of these were upstaged by two tawny owls chasing each other at high speed over the reedbeds and

through the woodlands. How they do not collide with a tree at these speeds is in-credible. Even two roe deer seemed per-turbed by the owl’s activities and hooting from the woodlands. Owls are best seen on a clear and still evening with some moonlight. We are now moving into March when spring song and the marvellous flora of our ancient woodlands come to life. There are many areas on the outskirts of Ipswich and in the parks where this can be experienced so get out and enjoy.

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A s for many of us, I have always main-tained a fascination with seabirds.

Quite probably first sparked in boyhood when visiting Pembrokeshire, and expe-riencing first hand, many of the exotic auk species, previously only drooled over in my treasured and much thumbed Pe-terson, Mountfort and Hollum field guide. Also present floating by on stiff wings were tube-nosed fulmar petrels that also bred here and on the RSPB’s Ramsey Island. A few years later, while still a schoolboy and on a YOC/YHA holiday, I recall walking out in the evening to Strumble Head and peering down at the steady skein of black and white birds with an appearance of animated pied plus signs, alternately dipping their wings in a flight that evidently required few wing beats. These, I soon discovered, were Manx shearwaters returning after per-haps several days at sea, in preparation for a stealthy nocturnal return to their nesting burrows and an expectant hungry chick. To think that these long-lived birds, whose non-breeding range extends over the entire Atlantic Ocean, with most win-tering off of Brazil and Argentina, can clock up some five million miles in a 50

year lifespan, is perfectly astonishing. The larger sooty shearwaters, also first seen by me from Strumble Head, fly even further and boast even more spectacular statistics. With populations in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, these south-ern hemisphere breeders migrate to the north during their winter season, travel-ling up the western side of both oceans, reaching sub-arctic waters in June or Ju-ly. Then they cross over to the eastern sides of these oceans, usually passing our shores from August through Septem-ber and into October on the return leg of their annual migration, reaching their Falkland Islands breeding colonies around November time. This can entail an annual journey of some 14,000 kilo-metres (8,700 miles) while Pacific popula-tions breeding on islands off New Zea-land can clock up an even more impres-sive 74,000 kilometres (46,000 miles) to reach Japan and California, averaging in excess of 500kms per day. Seawatching from Suffolk can frequently epitomise just that; several hours of

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A SCILLY PELAGIC ADVENTURE! from Chris Courtney

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watching a cold grey North Sea only occasionally relieved by a few passing gannets or, if more lucky, a distant shearwater or skua. Such sightings, especially in the mornings, frequently entail looking almost directly into the sun! Rarely, ideal conditions, with strong easterlies following on from northern storms, can funnel some good numbers of interesting seabirds into the North Sea, which can make it all worthwhile and even deliver a really close Balearic shearwater, bonxie (great skua) or Pomarine skua, but too often birds are very distant, hard to follow, constantly disappearing into wave troughs and require long experi-ence, or in some instances bravado, to reach a positive ID! So, how could I resist when an opportuni-ty arose to visit the UK’s premier pelagic destination in August last year? Conse-quently, without delay I made the neces-sary bookings for ferry, B&B and places onto two pelagic trips hosted by the two of the UK’s premier seabird ornithol-ogists: Dr. Bob Flood and Ashley Fisher. Bob and Ashley are co-authors of the utterly superb series of multi-media ID guides to the North Atlantic Seabirds, two of which have so far been published with another due this autumn. In addition among many achievements, Bob also was responsible, together with Bryan Thomas for the re-discovery, in Novem-ber 2003,of the New Zealand storm pet-rel. A bird otherwise thought, to have been extinct since 1850! In addition, he also featured briefly in the news in 2007, when lecturing on ornithology aboard the vessel M/S Explorer. During the first scheduled voyage, along with all of the other passengers and crew, he had to be rescued when the ship’s hull became

crushed by the Antarctic sea ice and the vessel rolled over into the ice! Anticipation was already rising as I board-ed the Scillonian ferry on Friday 8 Au-gust, from Penzance for a passage out along the southern Cornish coast and on past Land’s End for another 28 miles into the Atlantic Ocean. Aboard this small ship I was soon encountered Geoff, an RSPB volunteer who takes the ferry several times a week during the season in order to help passengers appreciate the wildlife as well as to promote the RSPB. After enjoying views of St. Michael’s Mount, our attention became drawn to some considerable gull activity across the bay that upon closer inspection re-vealed a small pod of feeding dolphins, although unfortunately remaining too dis-tant to identify to species. Casting off we headed out keeping the southern shore to our right as we headed west. Soon the first of at least five harbour porpoises were to be seen, and later two very dark and seriously hefty Risso’s dolphins were seen on the port side, as well as a

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Bonxie (great skua) . Picture Gary Thoburn

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four or five white-beaked dolphins and a single basking shark. Seabirds, in addition to the usual gull species, includ-ed numerous shags, several gannets, a single Mediterranean gull and a juvenile Sabine’s gull, which unfortunately I missed, being on the wrong side of the ship at the crucial moment! Meanwhile, by the time of our arrival, the fine sunny conditions had given way to a steady drizzle that greeted me as I won-dered about Hugh Town trying to find my B&B with my luggage, but fortunately by evening this had completely subsided in time for the departure of the first pelagic trip of the weekend aboard MV Sapphire. At just after 5.00 p.m. we set off from the quay, chucking out bread mixed with fish oil and other smelly ingredients in order to attract a good number of gulls. Upon reaching about three miles off-shore came the first shout of ‘Cory’s’ as a mag-nificent shearwater approached on ef-fortless bowed wings and made a stun-ning close pass. This bird was then rapid-ly joined by another, and another and another, until there were five, six, seven, then ten! Then seemingly from nowhere a great shearwater brought me back into contact with a species I had only seen once before off Cley, at a much greater distance some 40 years earlier. But here was one I could almost touch, quite a bit smaller than the Cory’s but still a large bird and with all its glorious features: dark cap, distinctive dark tube-nosed bill, pale fringes to its mantle feathers and wing coverts, dirty brown smudge on the belly, small crescent-shaped white rump and dark wedge-shaped tail. A truly magnifi-cent creature that had come all the way from that most remote South Atlantic ar-

chipelago Tristan da Cunha for us to en-joy! As with the Cory’s we soon saw many more great shearwaters though in lesser numbers than the calonectris. At about six miles out we prepared to chum and drift. Large net bags full of ra-ther stinky mashed up mackerel were tied on and lowered over the sides to create an oily slick, along with occasional hand-fuls of oily soaked bread and odd sprin-kles of a secret ingredient that Bob judi-ciously added to the slick at irregular in-tervals. We then proceeded to drift for the next couple of hours or so. After a while we were suddenly again surrounded by foraging Cory’s shearwaters. In all Bob estimated that that evening that we saw in excess of 200 Cory’s as well as more than 60 great shearwaters. Many at sufficiently close range for Bob to be able to point out the differing moult and age profiles of individual birds In addition more than 100 fulmar petrels were also seen, and after another hour and a half some over 25 European storm petrels were observed coming in to pick over the oily slick with their char-acteristic fluttering, dancing, almost bat-like like flight, interspersed with short glides, as with pattering feet, they deftly followed every tiny constantly morphing contour of the endlessly restless surface of the sea. Extraordinary little birds that breed in good numbers on some of the islands of the Scillies, but a species bely-ing its seemingly delicate appearance, as it is perfectly adapted for survival in the vastness of its oceanic home. While continuing to drift, a couple of bonxies (great skuas) also popped in for a look at proceedings while meanwhile skipper Joe Pender (also an excellent

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bird photographer), who had proceeded to set up several baited rods, pulled in a total of three blue sharks. The sharks, which like the petrels and shearwaters were also attracted in by the chum, were then weighed sexed and tagged, before being returned to the ocean. Joe has partici-pated in this Southampton Uni-versity conservation pro-gramme since 1996, since when he and his colleagues have tagged more than 450 blue sharks, as well as seven Porbeagle sharks. Among over 20 recoveries of blue sharks, several have been found up to 2,000 miles away off Madeira and up to 1,500 miles west of the Azores. A considerably larger blue shark also got hooked onto one of the rods and pro-ceeded to thrash around giving brief sightings that revealed that it was proba-bly around three metres in length! It then proceeded to dive deep under the boat from where it fought with Joe for another hour, while we continued to bird, before he could bring it back to the surface. He warned us all to keep clear as such a huge fish thrashing about the deck could potentially knock someone overboard or, one imagined being a shark, deliver a mighty powerful bite! It was therefore most probably fortunate that, just as it was being landed, the beast managed to wriggle of the hook, instantly plunging back into the watery depths from which it came! One particular calonectris shearwater that made a good close pass was strik-

ingly smaller and more slender in build, as well as being overall rather paler in its appearance. As it passed us it gave ex-cellent views (see photo) of its under-wings, revealing distinct ‘fingering’ (pale whitish tongues) on the underside of its primaries. This along with the other struc-tural features, such as head and bill structure, began to cause quite a stir! Could this bird turn out to be Britain’s second Scopoli’s shearwater? The first accepted record had also been off the Scillies in August 2004. Subsequent, discussions among the ex-perts agreed this bird most likely was a Scopoli’s shearwater. However, the most recently published paper on Sco-poli’s/Cory’s identification stresses the importance of fingering on the outermost primary (p10). This presented us with an anomaly, since although there appeared to be a ghost of fingering on p10 it was not marked, although all of the other fea-tures, size and structure and ‘jizz’ ap-peared consistent with Scopoli’s. Later, Bob emailed the photographs to a num-ber of Mediterranean based colleagues, one of whom thought the upper parts

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Cory’s Shearwater. Picture—Karel Hoogteyling

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looked one hundred percent Scopoli’s, another that the bill and head looked very good for the species, while a third said, ‘As you know, we still don’t know the full characters of Scopoli’s, but I have never seen one with this p10 un-derprimary pattern.’ Bob said that he will now expedite work on a project with his Mediterranean col-leagues to attempt to nail the definitive underwing pattern of Cory’s and Sco-poli’s once and for all! So we will just have to await the outcome. Returning back to port we were accom-panied by between six and eight white-beaked dolphins that rode the bow waves of MV Sapphire for several miles, while all along massed ranks of her-ring, greater and lesser black-backed gulls continued to follow behind the stern as night steadily fell enveloping us entirely in darkness long before we reached St Mary’s. The following day Bob also told me that the numbers of Cory’s and great shear-waters we had seen were quite unprece-dented in all of his many years of running hundreds of pelagics out from the Scillies. We were obviously very privileged to have had the good fortune of being exactly at the right time and place to witness the very peak of shearwater passage. Heading out on the Saturday morning was quite a contrast, as although we once again had some great views of five indi-vidual great shearwaters and over seven Cory’s shearwaters, it soon became ap-parent that the spectacle of mass foraging shearwaters had clearly passed. Several passing Manx shearwaters were also

observed, some at very close range, and altogether we saw around 15 of this spe-cies. Upon reaching some ten or so kilometres out, we once again began to drift, having once more set up our oily fishy slick in train. After some 20 minutes a small pet-rel, the first of the day, approached from afar as Bob shouted, this should be a Wil-son’s, and indeed it was! Making a su-perb close pass, enabling all to witness the straighter rear edge to the wing, dis-tinctive ‘jizz’, white rump almost wrapping under the tail, projecting toes and yes, even allowing the famous yellow webbing between the toes to be observed! Subsequently, several individual Europe-an storm petrels came past the slick as some more gannets and another bonxie (great skua) passed close by. Joe

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Storm Petrel. Picture—Karel Hoogteyling

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caught a further two young blue sharks, while a brief appearance was made by an extraordinary sun fish, while ceta-ceans were represented by harbour porpoise and three additional white-beaked dolphins. A sooty shearwater made a quick pass, but then some fan-tastic views were enjoyed by all of not just one, but two Balearic shearwaters. Both spent some minutes feeding on the slick and sitting on the sea in close prox-imity to our vessel. But although the two birds were not seen together (the second arriving some minutes after the first) we could be certain we had seen two individ-uals, as the second bird had a distinct missing primary and was clearly fatter than the first! The final day was not one I had originally booked on, but given an enforced addi-tional stay, by virtue of the ferry being cancelled in lieu of tropical storm Bertha, I thought why not! The night before Joe had insisted that the trip would be going ahead, saying that the powerfully-engined MV Sapphire was more than up to the job! Plus Joe’s vast experience at sea and as an RNLI lifeboatman, reas-sured us greatly. Upon arriving at the quayside on the Sunday morning and falling into conver-sation with several sailors, one skipper remarked that he hoped ‘I didn’t imagine I was going out anywhere today!’ As it was, we did indeed seem to be the only vessel leaving the harbour, nor did we see any other boats out all day! To say it was choppy would be an understatement as the seas were really quite huge, which often made birding and photography quite a challenge, not to mention staying upright on the deck! To my amazement,

the slick we created as before held to-gether, despite the turbulence of the wa-ters, and although once again we saw a number of calonectris and puffinus species of shearwaters the day really belonged to the storm petrels. We did once more see a single Wilson’s petrel but as the European storm petrels be-gan to home in on our slick, a process that frequently takes one or two hours or more for them to pick up the scent, their numbers steadily built to over 100 birds. Indeed, once they had arrived the stormies became a constant presence fluttering all around the boat, even pro-ceeding to follow us almost all the way home, as we ‘steamed’ back to port. On the Monday I completed a wonderful circular walk all around the truly scenic main island, with its fabulous beaches and views across to Tresco and the other islands. Birdlife was somewhat quiet, with only very few migrants such as a whim-brel and a single pied flycatcher; alt-hough this time the return ferry trip late afternoon served up all five species of shearwater (great, Cory’s, Balearic Manx and sooty) with I would estimate in excess of 1,000 Manxies around the final headlands as we approached Penzance. As a post-script, a day or so later saw a magnificent adult Sabine’s gull following the boat for almost the entire evening, and the following weekend on my birth-day gave all present fantastic close views of a Fea’s petrel. Now that would have made a good birthday present! All the pictures which accompany this article were taken on this trip and thanks are espe-cially due to Gary Thorburn and Karel Hoog-teyling for their kind permission. More pic-tures on the next and back pages.

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Wilson’s Petrel. Picture—Karel Hoogteyling

Great Shearwater. Picture—Karel Hoogteyling

Probable Scopolis Shearwater. Picture—Gary Thoburn

Balearic Shearwater. Picture—Karel Hoogteyling

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NEWS FROM RSPB MINSMERE RESERVE from Ian Barthorpe

T oday, 3 March is the UN World Wild-life Day. In celebration, I thought I'd

share a pictorial overview of some of Minsmere's amazing wildlife. Let's start with otters. Late winter and early spring is always the best time to see these popular mammals, and they put on a particularly impressive show yesterday morning. A female and two cubs spent quite a bit of time close to the hide, while the male also appeared at the far end of the mere. At one point the cubs caught a huge tench - estimated by visitors in the hide to be at least three pounds in weight - and fought over who was going to eat it first. A few lucky visitors had their camer-as to hand to capture the moment. Also at Island Mere, one bittern contin-ues to grunt, but there's been no proper booming yet. Several snipe continue to hide in front of the hide, a pair of great crested grebes is displaying, and marsh harriers are displaying on sunny days like today. A pair of buzzards can be seen displaying over Sizewell too. Last night the starlings appeared to be gathering over Island Mere when I went home at 5.30 p.m. but they've tended to put on a good showing over North Marsh and behind the visitor centre at dusk. Last year they roosted near Island Mere throughout March, so hopefully they'll stay a little longer yet. Out on the scrape, despite the ongoing fence replacement work, wader numbers and variety are slowly increasing. Sight-ings today have included at least 12 avo-cets, four turnstones, two ringed plov-ers, plus dunlins, redshanks, oyster-catchers, lapwings and curlews. The two redhead smew were seen again this

morning, and a few pintails remain among the commoner ducks. I wandered down to the Wildlife Lookout at lunchtime to see the spoonbill that was present - the other two had dropped in earlier, and probably simply moved back to the levels. Unusually, the spoon-bill was very actively feeding; swishing its long bill from side to side to catch fish and invertebrates in the spoon at the end. In the woods, with birdsong increasing by the day, and only a matter of days before we expect the first chiffchaffs to arrive, there are already of signs of nesting among some of our resident species. Long-tailed tits always nest quite early, and one pair were behaving very territori-ally today, and several great spotted woodpeckers are drumming. Before the chillier weather returned yesterday, we had the first sightings of adders this spring on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. I'd recommend leaving it anoth-er couple of weeks before coming to look for them though, and then choosing a sunny morning, making sure you arrive before 10 a.m. Better still, why not join us on guided walks to spot adders at the start of the Easter holidays. A woodlark was singing over the car park on Sunday morning, but Westleton Heath is a more reliable location to hear this beautiful song. March mornings are the best time of year. Nearby, I watched about 80 red deer grazing close to the road as I drove home last night. It won't be long before we welcome the stone-curlews back onto the heath either. Of course, with spring having started (or starting in the three weeks, depending on

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April 2015

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who you listen to!), there are a few flowers to look out for already. Snow-drops at the car park entrance and daffodils outside the visitor centre may be familiar from home, but look out too for hazel catkins dangling like lamb's tails (a colloquial name) in the woods, early blackthorn blossom (I haven't seen any yet) or pussy wil-low. I saw a small patch of coltsfoot on the Scrape today too. Two common cranes flew over on Sunday morning - a little earlier than usual, but they are regular on pas-sage in spring - and a red kite has just flown south. Red-throated di-vers, great crested grebes and gan-nets are regular offshore. We also still have two whooper swans around the Konik Field, and three tundra bean geese have been feeding among greylags at Eastbridge this week. Finally, don't forget to look for the tiny bird's nest fungus (pictured) which is still attracting a steady stream of admirers on the pond boardwalk. You have to look carefully though as the cups are only 5 mm. across.

This article has been taken from Ian’s blog on the Minsmere section of the RSPB website and reproduced with his permission. Ian writes a regular piece so in between editions of Orwell Observer why don’t you keep abreast of the news?

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Picture—Ian Barthorpe

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I nspired by Tim’s piece about the nam-ing of one of our most popular Suffolk

birds, I thought I would pen a few lines myself on the subject of naming birds. As you will all know birds have scientific names (which Chris is always encourag-ing us to use) but all have common ones as well. These are the day-to-day ones which we all use to discuss birds amongst ourselves, and will of course vary from country to country and lan-guage to language. After all we don’t all sit in hides at Minsmere shouting ‘Botaurus stellaris flying right!’ not even Chris! However I am sure it has not es-caped the notice of some of you that some of the common names have changed (how dare they!) Any compari-son between an elderly field guide and a more modern one will confirm this. I was told these changes were to accommodate our American cousins and to sort out some anomalies but I am sure it was just to confuse the ordinary birder such as your editor. Some of the changes I can fathom out. Divers are now loons – I did know that Americans called them that referencing their calls, and swallows are now barn swallows to avoid confusion with other species of swallow. If anyone sees any other species in Suffolk, apart from the occasional red-rumped, can they give me a call please! The terms common, northern, eastern, European, and Eura-sian have also appeared as a prefix to the more common names as well. It just takes up more space in my notebook! However you will occasionally come across a name that completely floors you. The lovely little fan-tailed warbler, re-membered with pleasure from our visits

to southern Europe is now – wait for it – a zitting cisticola. This references the call and the scientific name but such an ugly name for a lovely little bird. Another change in the name of taxonomical tidi-ness is rufus bushchat to rufus bushrobin. If you are expecting to see a bird similar to the star of our Christmas cards you will be mistaken. However with all these changes you should not be completely floored as they do have some link with the old name. What did completely bemuse me was, when I was looking though some of the trip reports that the wildlife travel compa-nies post on line in the hope that you will be tempted to book up one of their tours, I came across a name which brought me up short. ‘We went there, why didn’t we see one of those?’ we said. I checked my newest guide, Collins, but only the 1999 edition, so went online to investi-gate this bird. What on earth was a thick-billed murre? Was it worth doing some extra shifts at work to pay for this trip? Fortunately Wikipedia was able to tell me it was of course a Brünnich’s guillemot, which we had seen in their hundreds hav-ing visited one of their breeding colonies on the Norwegian island of Hornøya. I am sure you can find, as I can, numer-ous other examples but I now carefully go through trip reports otherwise my ‘lifers’ may not have been anything of the sort. *Acknowledgments to William Shakespeare for the title—Romeo and Juliet Act II Scene III

WHAT’S IN A NAME*? from Patricia Hall

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The group held a collection at Morrisons Supermarket, Sproughton Road, Ipswich on 14 February. The amount collected was £319.77. I would like to thank Hilary Kenny and all who helped out on the day. If there is anyone who would like to take part in future collections please let me know and I will pass your details on to Hilary who is now kindly organising these events. Judy Cook Tel: 01473 682239

Shark pictures courtesy of

Scilly Pelagics