Biking Birder I February 12th 2010 A Dip, A Tower and A Ferry

 

12^th February 2010                                                   She's Got A Ticket to Ryde (!)                                The Beatles

Into Portsmouth and another Primary School to visit. Later in the day I caught the ferry, one of the few times during this year that I used carbon/fossil-fuelled transport, over to Gosport and despite buying two loaves of the cheapest, sticky white loaves of bread to try to attract the Ring-billed Gull that was 'always' there, it failed to show. A dip that I was not to pull back until the final days of the year. Still I had an exciting time being surrounded by dozens of birds coming down for the  proffered bread.

Spinnaker Tower website

After such fun I went to the Spinnaker Tower, a lovely sail-like construction on Portsmouth's harbour entrance. The lift up the tower was tummy ticklingly fast and the thick glass floor near to the balcony edge was fun to bounce and lie down on.

 I love heights and my usual problem is a desire to either jump off or walk off into open space. The views from the top were unbelievably beautiful. The view over the Solent towards Cowes was particularly fine and worth the entrance fee on its own.

Next, I enjoyed a boat ride over to the Isle of Wight and then a cycle ride down to the far south of the island. Near to St Catherine's Head a wonderful couple had invited me to stay at their amazing house and I knew that they loved birds as soon as I arrived. Large areas of open space between bushes and trees in their garden, with mist net poles erected at each end of long rides, gave away their bird-ringing status. Ornithologists to be reckoned with, Daphne and Mike had arranged a superb dinner for the evening and during the meal Daphne showed photographs from a recent ringing and surveying trip to Australia. The birds en masse on the photographs were Oriental Pratincoles. “How many were there?” came the question. It looked like thousands on the photograph. “Fourteen million!”

This website tells of a mere 2.88 million.

2.88 Million Oriental Pratincoles Glareola maldivarum Frank O'Connor, AWSG; (birdingwa.iinet.net.au)

Incredibly well travelled birders and ringers, the evening was fascinating and an absolute pleasure. Another young lady was there, Caroline Dudley, was also a very keen birder, as I was to find out a couple of days later. 

27.07 miles

1208 feet elevation up   978 feet down

Big Green Big Year EUROPEAN Top Fifty

 

Every week, well almost every week, I find out the top fifty Green Birders by looking at each countries Green Birding rankings website or page.

This week's Top Fifty Big Green Big Year Green Birders are  . . .

1 Pierrick Devoucoux France 144

2 Niklas Holmstrom Sweden 122

3 Peter Moore UK 115

4 Sander Bruylants France 114

5 Guillaume Bruneau France 109

6 Didier Desmots France 106

7 Corentin Morvan unknown 103

8 Gael Kervarec France 102

9 Olivier Morel France 99

10 Johan Tufvesson Sweden 94

11 Adrien Gouyer France 92

12 Camille Vacher France 89

13 = Jean-Christophe Cordara France 87

13 = Mercenary Csaba Hungary 87

15 Aleix Comas Spain 86

16 = Judit Petho Hungary 85

16 = Valentin Vincent France 85

18 Bastienn Jeannin France 84

19 Guillaume Petitjean France 83

20 Jose Luis Anguita Spain 81

21 Orjan Engebrand Sweden 80

22 Antoine Vrignaud France 77

23 = Oscar Bargallo Spain 73

23 = Vincent le Calvez France 73

25 = Etienne Colliat France 72

25 = Loic David France 72

25 = Phil Villiers UK 72

28 = Lars Giner Sweden 70

28 = Magnus Johansson Sweden 70

30 = Magnus Hallgren Sweden 68

30 = Ifj. Bebesi Zoltan Hungary 68

32 Thomas Giles UK 66

33 Jacob Brown UK 65

34 Elias Ernvik Sweden 64

35 Colin Dupriez France 63

36 Ann-Sofie Jonsson Sweden 62

37 Tomas Altes Gonzales Spain 59

38 Johan Andin Sweden 58

39 = Joel Bjrberg Sweden 57

39 = Maarten Hillenaar Sweden 57

39 = Lars Johansson Sweden 57

42 = Simon Thorn Sweden 55

42 = Dirk Von Werne Belgium 55

44 Asa Enefalk Sweden 54

45 Frederic Leviez France 53

46 Pierre Gitenet France 52

47 Manuel Fernandez Pajuelo Spain 51

48 = Dan Bengtsson Sweden 50

48 = Catherina Engebrand Sweden 50

48 = Petter Olsson Sweden 50

48 = Eric Sandin Sweden 50

Spring is coming everyone. Those migrants will be arriving as I type!

Good luck everyone.

Pictured is Niklas Holmstrom of Sweden who is doing a Swedish Big Year - BIGBY - Big Green Big Year.

Details of Niklas' BIGBY Year list can be found here :

Niklas Holmstrom Big Green Big Year in Sweden

Biking Birder I February 11th 2010 Langstone Harbour and Pilsey Island RSPB Reserves

 

11^th February  2010

The Tide is High                      Blondie 

I had been contacted by Chris Cockburn and he had offered to show me around the two RSPB reserves, Langstone Harbour and Pilsey Island RSPB Reserves, reserves where he was warden.

 The latter one involved taking carbon transport as access was only possible by crossing Ministry of Defence land, something I was not allowed to do on my bike. Into a Land Rover we went and luckily for me no new birds for the year were seen. There were however masses of waders as the tide was high and the birds were having their twice daily rest. There were Bar-tailed Godwits, Knot, Dunlin, Grey Plover and Redshanks by the thousand.

To Langstone Harbour RSPB Reserve next and a good rarity that had been recently promoted into a full species, Green-winged Teal [131]. 

This bird has recently been demoted to just a teal. Lumped through using DNA evidence; Green-winged and Eurasian Teal are now one species!

Then I took a long walk around the sea defence wall, pushing the bike and chatting constantly with this wonderful man. Chris was one of the 'old guard' RSPB wardens, a rarity in himself, being an expert on birds unlike the some of the new breed of conservation degree holding youngsters. I have nothing against the new generation, the RSPB needs to become more inclusive and its Nature's Home direction is understandable. This is the shape of the organisation to come as they move away from their birds’ image to one of more diverse wildlife approach. The RSPB has always cared for all of Britain's wildlife forms yet due to name, people associate them with just birds. To me the change is overdue for the World's biggest conservation group.

Back to talking about Chris though. He reminded me of my very dear late friend, Gordon Barnes, being fabulously knowledgeable and great fun to be with. A BBC Radio Solent interview of me during the day was difficult as Chris kept pointing to imaginary birds to distract me! 

 

The reserve itself had exceptionally large numbers of Brent Geese and waders, with distant grebes on the water. The geese were in large flocks on the grassy meadows inland of the sea wall. In summer, Chris said, the reserve had large colonies of terns and I was to be invited to return and take a boat out with other RSPB volunteers to survey them. I have still to take up the offer. I must contact him. 

21.35 miles  

142 elevation up   185 feet down

Day ending with me reaching Portsmouth after stopping to take a photo of the fully laden bike outside Portsmouth Football Club's stadium. Up Pompey!