Black-winged Stilts at Manor Farm NR

Agh, it’s another desperately unimaginative blog post title, shamelessly designed to harvest google search hits. Sorry about that. Actually, I’m still recovering the power of speech after yesterday’s leggy lovelies. I have been wanting to see Black-winged Stilts for years. I’ve dipped them once and seen a ringed escape but that’s it. When I heard that a pair had been spotted yesterday morning at the Ouse Valley Park / Manor Farm NR, on the north side of Milton Keynes, I had to give it a shot. It took me more than half an hour to figure out how to get there and my master plan was “if I get lost, I just head for the M1 (and home)”. Thankfully, it was surprisingly easing to find and after a brisk walk, I laid eyes on my first ever pair of elegant, wild, wonderful Black-winged Stilts. Cor, they’re striking! All angles and contrasts and flourishes. Just beautiful!

No sooner had I set up my scope than the pair flew together to a distant island and proceeded to go through the intimate behaviours of courtship and mating. I think my chin hit the floor at that moment! I hadn’t even had time to configure my camera properly but I was so pleased that I managed to capture something of the moment, slightly blurry and mildly out of focus but frozen for posterity nonetheless. I particularly loved how the male bird’s final gesture (accidental or otherwise) was his right wing placed around the female, as if offering a little post-coital reassurance.

Context for the mating sequence, hastily digiscoped from approx 150+ metres away

After that, the birds separated and were constantly on the move around the site. Eventually, I decided I’d walk around the southeast edge and see if I could get to one of the new hides. This turned out to be the best decision of the day. As I rounded the corner and approached a narrow inlet, I could see the male bird foraging. He was infinitely closer than before and it gave me the precious opportunity to digiscope some better photographs (the top image and the following 3 images were all taken at this location, photographed right). By this point, I reckon I was probably grinning from ear to ear. I stayed on site for more than an hour, enjoying the birds and what is a superb nature reserve. I wished I lived closer.

I hear today that the birds have not been seen and have likely headed off. Perhaps they’ve realised they overshot their destination and are backtracking to mainland Europe. It’s a shame they’re oblivious to the immense joy they brought to many a birder on a chilly Sunday in April. Here’s hoping they fair well wherever they end up.

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The all important Stilt stats

• The last Buckinghamshire sighting was in 1988 (1st summer pair @ Willen Lake, 7-18th June)
• The last Hertfordshire sighting was in 1998 (adult @ Park Street Gravel Pit, 27-28th May)

“The birds' 'knees' are actually in their feathers so the middle bit of their legs is actually their ankles. Stilts' legs are so long that when they sit in the nest their ankles are above their heads!” (RSPB website)

Where they should be...

Distribution maps courtesy of HERE and Birdguides, HERE

In search of a Redstart

Every time I go out looking for a Redstart, I invariably find one of these instead...

Lady Wheatear at the Water End horse paddock, Friday (digiscoped)

Not that I’m complaining really. Better a Wheatear than a whole lot of nothing-but-the-usual.

Yesterday, after a couple of Whimbrel briefly joined the Spotted Redshanks at College Lake, I followed in their wake, hoping something else might alight in the shallows. Optimism eventually gave way to a practical realism and I left the Octagon Hide to walk a circuit of the reserve. I was hoping for Cuckoo but, at this time of year, there’s an openness to the possibility that anything could turn up, anywhere. And so it did…

As I walked down through the scrub at the NW end of the reserve, I saw a flash of red as a bird flew from the fence line to a tangle of leafless bramble in the enclosure. It called and then I spotted it at the base of the bush, a beautiful male Redstart. At last! I had been looking for one of these for the past month or so and there he was, a blaze of orange and black and white, with those lovely slate grey upper parts. Unfortunately, I had only seconds to drink in the sight before he skilfully tucked himself away, completely out of view. I waited another 20 minutes but he’d studied the Redstart manual in skulking and there was no way he was going to give me another glimpse.

Still, nothing beats the thrill of the chance encounter with a hoped for passage migrant. I walked back along the west bank footpath, smiling, with House Martins and Sand Martins swooping barely a metre above my head, snatching insects from the air. The nippy NE wind had deterred every other butterfly except for a single male Orange-tip, my first of the season, which perched briefly on a pretty Dog-violet.

When I got up this morning, I was content with the weekend’s birding. Little did I know that the best was yet to come…. More on that tomorrow.

Spotted Redshank at College Lake

By 11:15am, the highlight of my morning had been catching the last few notes of what might possibly…probably….maybe was a Lesser Whitethroat at the Brickworks. I’d also managed a record shot of the/a female Muntjac (I know, exciting times). Anyway, when I got back to the car and heard that there were 2 summer plumage Spotted Redshanks (Tringa erythropus) at College Lake, I was off!

I think I’ve only ever seen a couple of breeding plumage birds and certainly none of any plumage in Herts or Bucks. As a fairly scarce wintering species in the UK, it’s not really a bird I have much experience of at all. To add a little frisson of discomfort excitement to the chase, I’d left my scope at home, so had to pick that up on route. I finally got to College Lake some time after midday, wondering if my scope detour had cost me my prize.

From the Octagon Hide, I could find only one of the Spotted Redshanks but that was quite sufficient. One definitely trumps none. There were also at least a dozen displaying, noisy Redshanks; one Little Ringed Plover; two Common Terns, plenty of Lapwing…and various other wildfowl which I basically ignored.

The Spotted Redshank came to within about 100 metres of the hide and, unfortunately, from there, most photography suffers from being badly backlit. Below are my best digiscoped efforts.

Spotted Redshank (left) with Redshank (right) for comparison

The context. The view from the hide. The arrow indicates where the Spotshank was when digiscoping it, approx 100 metres

What's better than a Wheatear?

....a FLOCK of Wheatears

Yesterday, a sunny day and a morning off BMT monitoring. I headed for the hills. After a single Wheatear at Pitstone Hill and assurances that the beacon was “dead, no sign of migrants”, I was happy just to saunter in the sunshine. As it turned out, the SE slope of Ivinghoe Beacon was very much alive, with at least 6 Wheatears. Unfortunately, the moment I spotted them, a screeching child ran along the footpath not far from the flock, and they all took flight. I relocated 5 but there could well have been a few more around. I plonked myself down on the grass and just watched the little group.

One pair took it in turns to have a dust bath. Another male was actively watching insects in the air, following them with his gaze and then jumping up to catch them. He was great entertainment, with the flash of his white rump and the bouncy way he launched himself up and then down again.

The slog back up to the car park was a lot less painful knowing it hadn’t been in vain!