JFC's Birding

Saturday, 5 May 2012

5th May, 2012 South Landing, Flamborough

We decided to twitch the Flamborough Flycatcher which has been present for just over a week and is considered to be either an Atlas Flycatcher or a hybrid Pied/Collared Flycatcher. Excellent scope views for around an hour. The white on the wing and greater coverts and tertials is very extensive and solid, with the white above the bill also large and extends upwards in a point, diamond shape. No real white collar with a black tail with a fine white outer edge to the outer tail-feathers. The black on the upper-parts was very glossy with distinctive brown on the secondaries and primaries making it in its 1st summer plumage.

The Flamborough male Flycatcher

Thursday, 3 May 2012

3rd May, 2012 Burgess Hill

This odd looking female type Sparrowhawk briefly visited our garden this morning. On the 1st March, we also photographed a female Sparrowhawk in exactly the same place, (pictures are on this blog) but this bird appears to be a different individual.

Odd Female type Sparrowhawk in our garden this morning

Monday, 30 April 2012

30th April, 2012 Lewes Brooks

Stopped off at the layby on the A27 to look over Lewes Brooks for the Great White Egret, and managed to get a few digiscope shots of it in the heat haze.

Great White Egret at Lewes Brooks

Sunday, 22 April 2012

22nd April, 2012 Newhaven Harbour

On our way home from Beachy, we called into Newhaven Harbour to see what changes had occurred with the 2w Iceland Gull. It performed very well for us, and was now looking even whiter than earlier with a more clearer eye.

2w Iceland Gull Newhaven Harbour, perhaps the nearest we will

get to see an Ivory Gull in Sussex.

Saturday, 21 April 2012

21st April, 2012 Ditchling Common and Apuldram

On the drive to Beachy early this morning a Nightingale was in full song on Ditchling Common near the Burgess Hill turnoff.

After Beachy, we drove to Apuldram to have further views of the Apuldram Chiffchaff. It was again singing almost non-stop and very similar to the song heard here on the 17th April. It was very active when singing and we spent over 2 hours watching and listening to it and I attach a series of photographs which I took this afternoon. During the 2 hours, the song became quite variable and at times included the normal Chiffchaff song. Both DC & RJF have recorded a variety of the songs during this afternoon and hopefully they will be posting some of these to their blogs in the near future.

Having had previous experience of 2 Iberian Chiffchaffs in the UK being the Portland Bill and Norfolk birds, in my opinion the Apuldram Chiffchaff has a different song to these two birds. DC on his earlier blog described how the song differed in our opinion. What we don't know is how variable an Iberian Chiffchaff song is. In some previous web-site entries, some observers claimed a two bird theory, we strongly dis-agreed with this on the 17th and today confirmed this. Some observers also claim that they consider the song was very like recordings of Iberian. Both myself and RJF had recordings with us of various Iberian Chiffchaffs recorded at several locations including Spain, but to us, today's song had a number of differences, both in the structure and the tone. With good recordings now obtained, it would be worth having sonograms produced.

As you will see from the following photographs some of the plumage details appear slightly browner to others. Some of these pictures were taken in good sunlight and others in cloudy conditions in shade, and this clearly illustrates how the light can alter the colouration. I have not altered the colouration on the pictures.