August 31st 2022 First Full Day at Spurn Head

 

Staying for the night and the next two months, at the superb Spurn Bird Observatory...

https://www.spurnbirdobservatory.co.uk/ 

... I am up early, around 5am, to go seawatching at the seawatching hide at The Warren.

Soon joined by the Spurn regulars, armed with my new OPTICRON Travelscope, birds passing, with nearly all heading south, included over 350 Kittiwakes. These were mostly juvenile/1st year birds, over 90% of them and show that Kittiwakes at least have had a good breeding bird.

Soon tuning into the direction signals and markers, for instance the above photo shows the wind farm's power substation, local experts, like Steve, soon shout out as birds of note pass.

Fifteen Scoter north past left five.

I note down each passing bird, be they Gannet, Sandwich and Common Tern, Razorbill or Oystercatcher and am delighted when three Sooty Shearwaters * pass by, taking my BIGBY bird list for 2022 up to 257.

Incoming Whatsapp news of a Citrine Wagtail has everyone packing up and soon, within a very packed hide at Kilnsea Wetlands, I am adding the bird to my list. 258.

High tide in The Humber Estuary has waders roosting at Kilnsea and a long-staying Spoonbill is entertaining as it swish swish feeds in the shallow waters.

Now as I am a Friend of Spurn, a fully paid up member thanks to my daughter, Rebecca's Christmas present, I am allowed access to areas not available to non-friends. One of these is Syke's Meadow and a reported Icterine Warbler has me exploring the area, with other birds.

No sign of the Icky, news of a Red-backed Shrike at Vicars Lane, Easington has me cycle there but once again I dip.

Win two, lose two, I am not too upset by the dips, I have two months at Spurn Head ahead of me so there is plenty of time and a good chance that both these birds will be seen.

Back to the Bird Observatory for some tea; lentils and a protein drink bought for me by my son, Joshua, I am relaxing as the sun starts to sink.

News of a Wryneck disturbs my evening snooze and within ten minutes I have pedalled to Sammy's Point to not only add yet another bird to the BIGBY bird list but also see two birding friends, Mark Thomas of the RSPB and Niall Hunt, a birder who kindly put me up for the night back in January.

Three new birds in one day, this Green Birding lark is easy! With September starting tomorrow and with an average of 16 new birds for my list seen over the last ten years at Spurn; maximum of 21 in 2020 and minimum of 11 in 2015, I have a great chance to see a fair chunk of the 42 bird spcies I need to get to the magic, almost mythical target of 300 by the end of the month. 

I will be up with the lark once more tomorrow, to seawatch once more.

Back at the Incredible, Amazing, Wonderful SPURN BIRD OBSERVATORY

 

After stopping off at the wonderful Sandwell Valley RSPB reserve in the West Midlands, after having said goodbye to my 'in their Nineties' Mum & Dad, both of their birthdays being celebrated; Mum being 90 last Tuesday and Dad being 91 a few days later.

Day after day, alone on a bike, the man with the foolish grin . . . 

. . . cycles back to the incredibly wonderful Spurn Head in East Yorkshire where The Biking Birder, that is ME, will be spending the whole of September.

Leaving my Mum & Dad's home in North Worcestershire on the 24th of August, I cycled via Lichfield, and Derby when news of a Roller had me cycle 65 miles (!) in order to add this to my European BIGBY list. Impetus to see it was increased due to the fact that it was also a British Lifer for me!

Maybe not the best photograph of a Roller every taken, definitely a candidate for my 2023 National Geographic/Worst bird photos ever calendar but seen well in the fading light and BIGBY bird number 253. I promise it looked better through my new OPTICRON Travelscope and better still through a Wolverhampton birder, Kevin Clements' 'scope!

How lucky was I? The bird had gone the next day and I was the last to ever see it. That last happened to me with the Chestnut Bunting on Papa Westray, Orkney. I was the last one to see that bird too and as it had a habit of practically walking around birders' feet, I was accused the next day of treading on it.         I hadn't. Honest.

A Pectoral Sandpiper didn't play the game and left Blacktoft Sands RSPB reserve before I arrived there. This was after yet another 60 mile plus cycle day.

Great to relax there though for the morning and watch waders and Marsh Harriers, as well as chat with Stuart Taylor and Darren, RSPB staff there before setting off for North Cave Wetlands. There a Spotted Crake, although distant, did show and became BIGBY bird number 254.

And so to Spurn! With the nearest shop to the observatory being nine miles away from the Observatory, I loaded up, literally, with three large carrier bags full of food . . .

... and had a rucksack full of food on my back also. How I would love to know what the weight of everything was on my poor little bike.

Into the fabulous SPURN BIRD OBSERVATORY, booked a month's stay, unloaded everything and went off birding.

Two nearby, Beacon Ponds, Red-necked Phalaropes were soon seen and in the evening, an Arctic Warbler showed itself.

What an incredible start to my prolonged stay at Spurn.

It's going to be a superb autumn. Bring it on!

On The Road Again - Back towards East Yorkshire

 

          I just need to see that happy, smiling face of my arch Green Birding enemy, Ponc Feliu Latorre and I get the urge to get back on my bike and cycle 200 miles to get back to Spurn Head!

          Yes, I will be back on the road again today. Mum's 90th birthday celebrations . . .

. . .  are over and it is time to put The Spaniard in his place by beating him to the title, European BIGBY - Big Green Big Year champion.

Who will win?

Well, I have to believe that I will. Four months to go and although I am ten birds behind Ponc's current total of 262, the Autumn migration may give me all the birds I need to, not only catch him but take the title.

          I will be spending most of the next two months at Spurn Head, East Yorkshire. Looking forward to everything that that will entail, especially The Spurn Migration Festival. 

Spurn Migration Festival 2022

          As for the competition between Ponc and myself, I hope that we will have a lot of fun over the coming weeks and months as we both struggle to add birds to our growing lists.

          To that end, I have changed the words of a well-known England football song to reflect on the competition and I hope that you all will send me videos of you singing along with it!

          Come on! You know you want to. Sing it loud. Sing it clear. Video yourselves singing and PLEASE send me the video. 

          These three are singing it so why not join in?

(Facebook, Twitter or Instagram message me!)

The words?

Oh yeah. They'd help.

OK, here goes . . . 

BIGBY's Coming Home - Lyrics

 

Commentary – I think he’s used fossil fuels before

He’s used ferries before, not cycled it all before

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBY’s coming home

Commentary – He’ll go on doing a dirty BIGBY, doing a dirty BIGBY, doing a dirty BIGBY

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBY’s coming home

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBY’s coming home

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBY’s coming home

Everyone seems to know the score
They've seen it all before
They just know, they're so sure
That birds just will not fly here today
They won’t fly here this way
But I know we can say
Cos we remember

(chorus)
Sib Acc on the cliff
Lee & Cath’s smiles beaming
Nine cruel years, what if?
Never stopped me dreaming

So many missed, so many fears
But all those oh-so nears
When I’ve dipped, through the years
But I still see that gull on the shore
And when Goshawks did soar
And the Firecrest so small
And some Cranes dancing

(chorus)
Sib Acc on the cliff
Lee & Cath’s smiles beaming
Nine cruel years, what if?
Never stopped me dreaming

(Commentary) – Britain has done it, in the last minute of December

(Commentary)  - What a Bird! Blue Rock Thrush.

(Commentary) – Good Old Britain! Britain with birds in the autumn.

Britain has got this in the bag!

I know that was then
But it could be again

It’s coming home
It's coming
BIGBY’s coming home

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBY’s coming home

Commentary – Britain has done it

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBY’s coming home

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBYs coming home

 

It's coming home
It's coming home   (Sib Acc on the cliff)
It's coming  
BIGBY’s coming home  (Lee & Cath’s smiles beamimg)

It's coming home   (Nine cruel years, what if?)
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBYs coming home   (Never stopped me dreaming)

 

It's coming home     (Sib Acc on the cliff)
It's coming home  
It's coming  
BIGBY’s coming home  (Lee & Cath’s smiles beamimg)

 

It's coming home   (Nine cruel years, what if?)
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBYs coming home   (Never stopped me dreaming)

It's coming home     (Sib Acc on the cliff)
It's coming home  
It's coming  
BIGBY’s coming home  (Lee & Cath’s smiles beaming)

 

It's coming home   (Nine cruel years, what if)
It's coming home
It's coming
BIGBYs coming home   (Never stopped me dreaming)

…….

          Nine cruel years refers to how many years I have dreamed of being the European Green Birding BIGBY Champion. Ponc broke the record back in 2013, when he saw an incredible 304 bird species.

          Lee and Cath and the Sib Acc, Siberian Accentor?

          Back in 2016, when I was on Fair Isle, the best birder I know, Lee Gregory found an ultra rare Siberian Accentor. In fact 2016 was the year of the Siberian Accentor. Never before seen in Britain, that year brough over ten to our shore, with Lee's being the fourth. Lee's face as he cuddled his then fiance, now wife, Cathy, is one of my favourites.

          This photograph of the fabulous couple was taken at the Blue Rock Thrush twitch on the penultimate day of that fantastic Biking Birder year.

          So, back to Spurn with bird targets to see on the way there from Worcestershire; Pectoral Sandpiper at Blacktoft Sands, Spotted Crake at North Cave Wetlands and a Red-necked Phalarope at Kilnsea.

          Wish me luck!

          and just maybe I will be celebrating once more, like I did back in 2016 after seeing my 305th bird species of the year, a Pine Bunting on Fair Isle. BUT I used ferries and therefore the record is tainted, hence this BIGBY. 

NO FOSSIL FUEL TRANSPORT THIS YEAR!!!!

Weeks to Catch Up on! The BEST Birds of July and August

 

Let's start the round up of the new bird species added to my BIGBY, Big Green Big Year list over the last ten weeks with the American Black Tern. Not a bird that could be added actually for at the moment it is a sub-species.

A Roseate Tern at Musselborough was a bonus bird. Having slept in the roofless hide and having been soaked by overnight rain, to see a species missed when near Coquet Island was brilliant. Sad to say that the two days I spent at Hauxley NR searching for Roseates was tainted by the large number of dead and dieing birds due to avian flu. Fifty five dead Sandwich Terns were on one island at the reserve!

Pied-billed Grebe at Feorlin Loch, Scotland and what a trek to see that bird! The insect bites I received on my legs are still scabbed and itchy. Must get them looked at!

This Black Guillemot at Connel Bridge saved me having to cycle from there to Oban and back!

Nine hours treking three Munroe mountain tops before finally finding two Ptarmigan at the very last bit of scree!

Nine hours for a Ptarmigan, nine seconds for a Crested Tit! Lieing in my sleeping bag in the evening, I noticed a titmice flock going over my tent. Get up and check, I told myself and on doing so the second bird to come out of an adjacent bush when pishing was this little beauty.

Didn't manage to photograph a distant White-tailed Eagle near the Chruch of Scotland in the Findhorn Valley but did manage to photograph a nearby Golden Eagle at the far end of the valley.

No photograph either of an exploding Capercaillie, well it startled me when it erupted from behind a fallen tree trunk as I was walking around a forest near Carrbridge. This deer was more obliging.

Velvet Scoter were seen at Musselborough but despite another two days spent there,  still couldn't find the King Eider.

This Polish-ringed Caspian Gull was seen at Amble.

Three really tough days cycling, due to a strong gale from the south-west, eventually got me to Bempton RSPB reserve and late in the evening, after watching a Short-eared Owl (top) and a very close Barn Owl, the reported Red-tailed Shrike popped up on the hedge just in front of me. The photograph above I took the following morning.

Adding Arctic Skua to the list whilst seatwaching with the Flamborough Head crew, I then cycled towards Hull only to be diverted to Spurn Head as an American White-rumped Sandpiper had been seen.

Didn't see it that day, nor the following but the day after that I saw two!

And there we have it. Today, August the 12th will see me cycle towards Leicester in temperatures approaching 32 Celsius! After those ferocious gales mentioned above, the last three days have been scorching and indeed the landscape as I have cycled through Lincolnshire has been parched and drought-ridden.

My BIGBY bird list now stands at 250. I am still some way behind the leader, Ponc Feliu Latorre, twelve bird species actually but two months at Spurn Head and Flamborough should bring its rewards this autumn.

Time to get back to Worcestershire, to my family to celebrate the 90th birthday of my dear old Mum. BCNU all xx

The North East : Part 1 North York Moors

          Emotions cascade as I view the hazy North East from my high vantage point on the gravelly, almost uncyclable Cleveland Way bridleway. Relief at having almost reached the end of a tough afternoon of push and desolation, I look towards my evening accommodation destination north of Middlesborough and towards the distant Pennines to the west. Ahead of me Roseberry Topping has the distinctive witch's nose appearance and seeing that relaxes me as I cautiously approach one of my favourite areas of Britain, the industrial North East.

 Gripping tightly my bicycle handlebars, I descend from Baysdale with the wheels sliding and bouncing over pebbles and sand. 

           My day had started easily enough, leaving my superb Air B & B in Snainton, east of Pickering, saying goodbye to Richard and Emma. Cycling along the busy, lorry-laden A170 the first fifteen miles was easy enough despite it being warm with a fresh westerly in my face.

          I had stopped on seeing a traditional Gypsy caravan beside the road just outside Pickering and so had met Jim & Milly, older than me Gypsy's with their early twenties sons, Levi and Jonathan. An hour or so spent with this wonderful traveller family was well spent and, after a demonstration of Jim's knive sharpening bicycle, I had turned north at Kirbymoorside.

           Push and plunge, the road had steep flower-filled hedgerow margins and occasional white knuckle cycling drops before it arrived at the high moorland of the North York Moors.

           Curlews sat on drystone walls or curlewed as they fell into long grass to attend to, hopefully, the youngsters hidden amongst the sward.

           Arriving at proper moorland, noticeboards tell of waders to be seen, Lapwing and Curlew, and Merlin but nothing about the larger birds of prey. No Hen Harriers up here!

          Vicious traps found designed to kill non-avian predators, such as Stoat and an immense patchwork of scorched earth areas with young heather patches stretching for miles in all directions told me I had arrived at a Grouse shooting moor. I detest such places. It is an almost birdless desert, totally manufactured for the slaughter of Red Grouse.

          I would have almost ten miles ahead of me, to negotiate a pathway unsuited to my heavily laden hybrid bike. Most of my afternoon was spent pushing, occasionally cycling and more often spent standing on one pedal and moving along, able to jump off if the pebbles and stones caused the bike to slide and fall.

          Birds were almost totally absent. Despite the miles covered, I only saw two adult Red Grouse, a few chicks too, two Golden Plover and a few Meadow Pipits. Some Crows and Curlews were occasionally seen too.

          I keep thinking of the magnificent Ruth Tingay of the website - Raptor Persecution UK.

https://raptorpersecutionuk.org/2019/06/12/buzzard-found-shot-dead-in-north-york-moors-national-park/ 

https://twitter.com/RuthTingay/status/1145258045884248064 

and of a great friend, Mark Thomas of the Head of Investigations office at the RSPB.

           The incredible work done by both individuals over a number of years, acting upon the evil practices of too many in the grouse shooting and hunting community, has been phenomenal and both deserve to be nationally recognised.

          So, reaching the moors end is fabulous and after seeing a fly by Tawny Owl, unusual to see one flying in daylight, I cycle towards Middlesborough, eventually to bed down near to Greatham Creek, just north of a favourite RSPB reserve, Saltholme.