24 : Asian Magpie Robin

Asian Magpie Robin - Copsychus saularis

This is my last post for May and I seem to have got into a decent habit with this. It is established as part of my daily routine (with the odd catch up some days). Its amazing how many photographs you can find tucked away - I'd actually forgotten I did some birding in Iceland for example - I will still need to make an "adventure dash" soon and the funds are being allocated for the camera purchase. Onwards and upwards.

I know we are in a bit of Sri Lankan phase at the moment but if you are following day to day (some people are amzingly) I hope its giving an indication of what a wonderful place it is for birds. Now that the troubles are over I think many more people will start going to the island. All I can say is get away from the Western coast South of Columbo and head for those hills. We did a big loop from Columbo to Kandy (in the very centre) then down in a South East direction through Nuwara to Bundarewella (spelling) - the tea country - then on down to Yala in the very South East then back around the South coast to Galle and Bentota and back to Columbo for a night before flying back home to Dubai. We took 12 days for what looks like a small loop on a map - the roads are single lane mostly, pot-holed and the average speed was really 30-50 km all the way round. Allow plenty of time and build in extra stops. It is an island that needs 3 trips of 2 weeks if you are going to really see everything it has to offer in terms of heritage and spend a fair amount of time in the national parks.

Today an Asian Magpie Robin snapped on the manicured lawn of the Nuwara Elliya country club. They even had snap dragons in the garden and a half timbered frontage to the hotel. A place lost in time in the high tea country.I have feeling that my better half snapped this while we were sat waiting for the restaurant to open.

I mentioned when talking about Robins how it was a common name attributed to many species around the world by western travellers. A bit of colonial bird naming. Its no exception with this species which is actually a flycatcher rather than a thrush or chat (the same family as our European Robin). A specimen skin of this asian bird was sent back from a physician gentleman collector in India to an ornithologist in England and it was described to science in the mid nineteenth century. I expect it was known to the locals for thousands of years and had a perfectly goood name ! The european common name attributed to it was Magpie Robin - it was coloured like a Magpie (black and white) and looked about the same size as a robin and foraged on the ground. This before clever DNA sampling would have shown that it was closer to a Pied Flycatcher !

These birds were an integral part of the dawn chorus when we were travelling around - much like my own robins from home. I spent a fair amount of time looking for the owner of this "voice" when I started our Sri Lanka trip - I was expecting to see a brightly coloured bird sat in a mango tree. Eventually I worked out that it was an "robin" sat on the tv arial of our lodge. Not a disapointment though. A very smart bird.

Asian Magpie Robin - Copsychus saularis
Nuwara Elliya Country Club, Sri Lanka
13 April 2011

23 : Streak-throated Woodpecker

Streak-throated Woodpecker - Picus Xanthopygaeus

Woodpeckers are everybody's favourite. They are nornally colourful and they are interesting to watch in terms of behaviour. They are usually have loud calls and also drum on tree trunks which is quite a physical feat. Can you imagine knocking on a tree with a hammer in order to get the same kind of sound to carry. This is another big family of birds that over time I will need to get through.

This Streak-throated Woodpecker was on the lawn at Kirchayne lodge in the high tea country near Bunderwele in Sri Lanka. The lawn itself with the rose beds looked all the world as if it could have been in Surrey. This was the last big tea plantation owned by an "English" family before nationalisation by the Sri Lankan government. With a green looking woodpecker on the lawn it really could be mistaken for a little part of England. It was raining when this was taken for starters and croquet and tennis were off !

Streak-throated woodpeckers are obviously in the same sub-set of woodpeckers as "greens". They are common on the Indian sub-continent and South Asia generally. This bird was probably grubbing for ants or leatherjackets under the lawn. Its a male given the bright crimson cap. I expect the scene has been repeated up and down the Indian sub-continent during the colonial era - A guy sat there with a gin and tonic remembering his lawn and the birds back home as he worries about the price of tea.

Steak-throated Woodpecker - Picus xanthopygaeus
Kirchayne lodge, Bunderwele, Sri Lanka
14 April 2011

22 : Painted Stork

Painted Stork - Myteria leucocepheria

Another Indian/Asian bird and again photographed at Yala. Painted really is an apt name. The flight feathers remind of something from a chinese silk screen.

These seemed to be fairly abundant birds in Sri Lanka inhabiting any flooded area including paddy fields, tanks and ponds. They feed by walking with their bill immersed and so I assume they snap up small fish and frogs etc. It was certainly more of a feed by touch method than a wait and stab egret/heron type strategy.

They are fairly tall - a metre or so and impressive in flight soaring with outstretched necks.

Here a bird added to the site after a trip to Bangalore a year after this original post.

I promised pictures of other Yala wildlife as we seem to be spending a lot of time this month in the Yala. Below a Sambhur Deer stag - the biggest deer we saw in the park. Very shy and secretive so this was a lucky shot on our way out after 48 fabulous hours. Before this individual we had only seen one or two animals and they bolted as soon as we appeared. These were big animals - think red deer if your from Europe and you have got the size

I now am being encouraged to invest in a new camera on the grounds that I am going to run out of quality photographs at some point and the blow ups I am doing from quite a humble panasonic are often a touch clunky ! The plan is to get a Canon 450 D with a 400m f 5/6 lens. That was the recomendation from quite a good site on bird photography and a fast lense is the way to go. I have to say some of the pictures I have seen on the net put my efforts to shame. I am sure I won't look back and we are fast approaching a point when the cupboard of images will have run out (a couple more months perhaps). In the Summer in Dubai a lot of the families clear out (including mine) so I will have plenty of time to wander lonely as a cloud (dust cloud that is) playing with my new toy. So thats the plan. I may manage a quick weekend somewhere that the wife and kids might not fancy for a family break (Iraq ?!? - seriously would love to see the Marshes but would not want to end up in a boiler suit on CNN - pehaps leave that to sort itself out for a few years. The marshaes have been reflooded though in part and *thousands* of marbled teal have return. You only have to give nature half a chance.)

I will need a hide clamp and a tripod and a bit more patience probably. I think maybe Ethiopia might be good or up into Asia for a bit of vast steppe action. When you fly from Dubai to London there are some mighty big mountains out of the plane window. Its time to get the maps out and time to get kitted up - the Task in on !

Painted Stork - Mycteria Leucocephia
Yala, Sri Lanka, 15-18 April 2011

21 : Yellow-wattled Lapwing

Yellow-wattled Lapwing - Vanellus malarbaricus

This shot of a small packet of Yellow-wattled Lapwings was taken in Yala. These birds are spread right through the Indian sub-continent from Sri lanka in the South right up to Pakistan and Nepal in the North.

I like the colour scheme - they really are quite handsome. They are birds of quite arid scrub and feed on termites, beetles and other insects. When they nest on an open patch of ground they will fly off to soak their chest feathers in water to keep the eggs cool while they are sitting.

Yellow-wattled Lapwing - Vanellus malarbaricus
Yalla, Sri Lanka, 15-18 Aoril 2011

20 : Black-hooded Oriole

Black-hooded Oriole - Oriolus xanthornus

Orioles belong in the sun of the tree canopy. Their sulphur yellow plumage and fluting songs are exotic and make you strain your eyes into the tops of trees to pick them out. They are such a reward to see and hear. This bird again was just around Ellerton's lodge in Kandy, Sri Lanka. Every morning I would walk 3 paces out of the front door of my room to look out onto a forested slope and spend a good hour picking out birds. Birding on tap at 6 am to work up an appetite for breakfast.

If you go to Sri lanka try hoppers - baskets woven out of rice flour that have an egg in the bottom. Fruit and a curry for breakfast is not uncommon either. They are accompanied by a thing called sambal which is shredded coconut usually with spicy tomatoe or mint. You might get a Dhal or some spicy potatoes. A Sri-lankan omolette with fiery green and red chillies is a good start for the day as well. There are different pickles made out of mangos,brinjal or limes. The bananas are good with the pickles - they tend to be small and sweet. In Sri lanka the food miles measured on a banana can be less than 1. Also buffalo curd with a treacle from palm sap was a new one on me. Big birds followed by a big breakfast. The day is already perfect before 8.30 am.

Black-hooded Oriole - Oriolus xanthornus
Ellertons lodge, Kandy, Sri Lanka
8-13 April 2011

19 : White-throated Kingfisher

Above - a later siting during the Banglore Bonanza in May 2012.

White-throated Kingfisher - Halcyon smyrnensis

This picture below was taken down at my river in the bottom of the valley near Ellerton's lodge in the hills beside Kandy, Sri Lanka. I had a daily walk that wound down the side of the hill - taking in a few smallholdings and bits of cleared forest. At the bottom of the track was a small hydroelectric power facility with a road bridge and a shop ! The mud in and around the bay by the dam was home to a few different bird species.

All Kingfishers are wonderful - they vary in size from whopping great things the size of small crows to tiny birds that would sit in the palm of your hand with ease. This is quite a chunky little kingfisher quite a bit bigger than the kingfishers you might be used to seeing in Northern Europe - 'commons'. The bill is quite large and I think these birds hunt over the land as well as the water taking small lizards, large insects and so on. I saw them all around Sri Lanka perched on telephone wires mostly.

I have to admit that on the day I walked down the valley and snapped this fine bird I cheated and got a tuc-tuc to haul my frame back up the hill. That was as much fun as seeing this bird - the driver had to be forced to take money from me. It was a short journey and he kept waving me away when I tried to get in my wallet. Amazing country, lovely birds and lovely people.

The chocolate brown and the bright blue on this bird were stunning in the sun and in flight it took your breath away.

This is a view of the front of the bird with its white throat.

And a blow up to show the big hefty bill. This was a very satisfying 'tick'. A sunny walk through a tropical forest that ended with a kingfisher in the valley below. Whats not to like.

White-throated Kingfisher - Halcyon smyrnensis

Near Ellerton Lodge, Hills by Kandy, Sri Lanka

10 April 2011

18 : Sri Lankan Jungle Fowl

Sri Lankan Jungle Fowl - Gallas lafayetti

Yes it is a chicken. Along with 3 other distinct jungle fowl the grandaddy of all domestic chickens. They are part of the pheasant family and clearly this is the male bird given its striking plumage. The female bird will be brown and a little more drab in order to stand an even chance of sitting on a clutch of eggs on the ground for a couple of weeks.

This photo was taken in the Yala national park and if he looks a bit hurried you have to understand that he has Mongoose, wildcats, jackals and leopards all perfectly willing to despatch him. This bird is endemic to Sri Lanka. At some point either Sri Lanka was cut off or an ancestor wildfowl made it onto the island and they went their seperate course. It is not just plumage that makes a species - it will have a seperate foraging and breeding strategy possibly all developed in balance with its surroundings. When people worry about free range chickens and looking after them its those scratching and roosting behaviours that they look to. The depressed chickens in those sheds could only dream of the high octane life that this bird lives. Yes he can run from a leopard - hence the blurred photo.

So grandfather chicken - I am assuming that the journey to the depressing broiler house began tens of thousands of years' ago. Perhaps you'd have kept running and not taken the spilt grain if you'd have known what was in store for your ancestors. I don't know anything about the history of the domestication of fowl but this bird was definately wild ! The Bear Grills of chickens.

I leave you with the view from our tent flap that morning just to remind myself of what is out there.

Sri Lankan Jungle Fowl - Gallas lafayetti
Yala National Park, Sri lanka, 15-18 April 2011

17 : Green-Backed (Striated) Heron

Green-Backed (Striated) Heron - Butorides Striatus

Another Mauritius bird but a little more obliging than a Pink Pigeon. The photo was taken in the botanical gardens in Pampelmouse. This bird in turns danced on stalks and cavorted on lily leaves no doubt releaving the gardeners of some of their fish stock.

It does have a glint in its eye - if you woke up and one of these was perched on your bedstead I accept it would make you start. I am sure it just has a decent focus for grabbing little fish. I know some people don't like birds because of their bills, feet and eyes. We tend to project our own emotions onto them. Believe me this bird is not malevolent - just doing its thing.

There are a lot of herons, egrets and bitterns - 63 and according to my mate Collins 5 are vulnerable and 3 endangered. 2 or 3 species are known to have become extinct since 1600.

My mother-in-law is quite fond of my bird antics although she does think that I am a bit of a ticker and lister - stamp collecting she called it. Anyway she sent me a card once - true comic brilliance - "Egrets - I've had a few - but then again too few to mention". I then got a plate with an Audobon Heron picture on it. Little Egrets were a real excitement when they swept round the UK in the last 15 years and turned up near my parents in law - global warming ? All herons (perhaps not Bitterns) make for good photographs for obvious reasons so we should be seeing quite a few on them on these pages. I am having one of my evenings when I am wondering whether I can actually keep this up for 27 years but I can certainly make a real go at denting the herons as they are easy I think.

Diversity is the celebration of life. I was looking at a list today of a party of five Dutchman who spent 3 weeks in Ethiopia and saw 500 birds species. They also saw 20 species of ungalates, different wolves, jackals and foxes, monkeys - the lists went on.

I think the lists are just to try and cause you to remember how much you have seen. I have checked the flight prices and schedules to Ethiopia - al very doable so that might be my first mad dash and the Summer when the families desert Dubai (leaving stray Males) is soon upon us."What are you doing this weekend Neil ?" Ah - flying to Ethiopia to go and photograph Abysynian Roller (not even sure if thats a bird). Its quite close from here - a short 4 day hop to add a Ground Hornbill or too - if I saw a rare Ethiopian Wolf it certainly wouldn't be a wasted trip. When I am at 9000 with 900 to go this post will make sense - to me I hope. Even 5000 with 5000 to go would be stupendous. I think my first milestone will be 100 birds as that will be 1% of the Task complete. We will be there by the end of the Summer.

Sorry to ramble and muse this evening - this heron is perfectly adapted for stealing fish in a botanical park - its quite a good photo by my standards and a handsome bird.

Striated Heron (Butorides striatus)
Mauritius - Pampelmouse botanical gardens - July 2010

16 : Pink Pigeon

Pink Pigeon - Neseonas mayeri

I had to reach for my "Birds of the Indian Ocean Islands" to find the latin name for this bird. It will be a good day when that gets repacked. We are of course on Mauritius this evening and the tale of the Pink Pigeon is a tale that we will come back to again and again. Unique birds, island endemics, limited range and the arrival of man equals problem for bird.

Firstly the photo - I took the family on a hike through the last big tract of indigenous forest left on Mauritius in the grim knowledge that it was my best chance to bag as many of the island's endemics as I could. Now I am a little unfit and the boys were I think 9 and 6. My wife is probably the most adapted to walking long distances. When the guide told us after about 20 minutes that the projected route was 14 km I started to convert that back into old money. Divide by 8 and times by 5 I think. Well 8 into 14 was not working well but I got to 1 and 3/4 and then applied my five. Holy moly guacamole - 8 and 3/4 miles. What then took place was an all day conspiracy to hide the fact from our children that we had "bitten off more than we could chew". "How far is it" is not something we needed to hear after about half and hour. I worked out in my head that with the difficult terrain at times this was going to be about 4 hours plus with a stop for lunch and the odd photo.

I probably have walked more than 8 miles several times in my life - I have enjoyed it as well. We had the scenary and the place was fascinating. The guide was good at picking out odd plants and things - he was a botanist at heart. Plants that popped when squished e.g. the botanical equivalent of bubble wrap - thank heavens for any diversion.

It is a different thing with an 9 and a 6 year old. You don't want them to get miserable half way round. They did very well. I could not walk down some steps the next morning. The walk was slippy at times, very steep and so on - we saw some birds though, and lizards and Monkeys and got a sense for what the island was like before man arrived and turned it over to a cash crop - sugar.

Mauritius was of course the home of the Dodo. Perhaps the only extinct bird that the "White Van Man" can name. As with many islands that lacked predators birds had a hard time of it when man (and rats) arrive. On some islands hedgehogs of all things have ran amuck. There is an albatross being ravaged by killer mice on one ocean island. Mostly though the island story seems to be about felling indigenous forests to clear the way for more people and new crops. Many of these islands also had people "imported" in order to work the fields and they in turn needed to be fed. More forest goes down. So many threatened birds are on small islands. When I grow up I am buying one and replanting the whole thing. People or birds though - you can have both.

The Pink Pigeon was a simple victim of habitat loss. It was recognised that the numbers had dropped dramatically by about the 60's and 70's and then steps were taken. I do not know the exact number but the population would have happily made up a feeding party in a town park. Luckily it was one of the early beneficiaries of captive breeding programmes and island habitat conservation. It was saved at the brink - a small offshore satelite island was used as a sanctuary (another mainstay of saving island endemics).

So after about 8 miles we descended into more humid and lush forest.

At this stage the guide said we should stop for lunch. I have to say I wondered why half way round wasn't a good option. By my reckoning the walk was 90 % over ! Also we had stopped next to a hornets nest which had "Uncle Fret" as I am known in some circles a bit concerned.

I guess the theme of this post is that much of the time you have to work for your birds. Equally though with some research you could walk 300 yards from a different car park !

Yes - This pigeon was perched about 300 yards from the end of our walk. I would love to say that I spent more than 2 minutes with it. My feet were sore, my back ached, my children were still good but possibly not as captivated by the pigeon as me. Was I captivated ? To this day I have to say it was never quite as Pink as I wanted it to be after 8 miles. More off white pink than a rose blush. How rude of me is that. I really did want to see a Pink Pigeon and I got one - it just wasn't that Pink. I did see an Echo Parakete, a Mauritius Kestrel and so on (for another post). I will need to get some exercise though as another limitation on the success of this "voyage of birds" could be my fitness. I am proud of that Pink Pigeon - but probably more proud that my 9 and 6 year old walked close on 9 miles. All the way down from the top.

Thank you Gerald Durrell and the people of Mauritius. The world is a better place with the odd Pink Pigeon in it. 300 yards would have been cheating.

Pink Pigeon - Neseonas mayeri
Mauritius, South Central Highlands, July 2010

15 : Pallid Harrier

Pallid Harrier - Circus macrourus

These happy shots were taken by my brother in law at the Pivot Fields in Dubai. I am utilising the "with the photographer" rule today - they record my tick and I was talking to the photographer at the time - actually out on a trip with them. I am not going to use this rule to post pictures on mass twitches taken by complete strangers. Mick has a long lense and I do not and this was a long lense job !

Its a happy series of pictures because they told me it was a Pallid Harrier and not a Montague's Harrier. It comes down to very fine detail with some of these birds and perhaps without a picture I would still be "at sea" as to the identification. The face pattern has a dark cheek patch which contrasts with the light ruff-collar. On a "Monties" this contrast is not there. Luckily it shows up well in this photo.

The Pivot Fields is a big nursery basically where they sell plants and also grow turf commercially which is watered by those great big wheeled contraptions that trundle around whole fields. Things need a lot of watering in the desert. As there is so much water lying and spraying about the place is a haven for birds on migration, overwintering and right now (late May) there are many pairs of other birds breeding. So its an artificial oasis and magnet for the realatively few birders who are in Dubai.

Mick and I watched this bird for quite a long time quatering the scrubby overgrown margins of the site and then circling overhead

The face pattern is distinct on this photo as well. Also the colouration underneath is very orange which makes it a juvenile bird according to everything I have looked at.

This is a bird of the Steppe whose heartland is Kazakhstan and the vast Asian interior. I would hazzard a guess that as it was early April 2010 (whenever Easter was) this young bird was on its way back up the Gulf from whereever it had overwintered. Reading up there is a huge raptor passage up the Eastern edge of the Black Sea hemmed in by the Pontic Alps. On the other side of those mountains a similar movement up the edge of the Caspian Sea. This was where this bird was heading - back to its Summer breeding grounds on the Steppe. One of just a few thousand Pallid Harriers on the move then and taking advantage of the oasis of the Pivot Fields to refuel on the move.

They hunt small mammals, birds and some insects and reptiles. Truly wonderful - a true wanderer and beautiful.

If I am ever going to progress seriously with this task one day I will have to post a picture of a Montague's Harrier (and they are very similar) and make a call the other way. That will be a nice jigsaw puzzle to sort out and probably like this bird it will be the photos that save me. I think I am learning as much by looking at photos and books as I go along with this. At least I now know what a Montagues Harrier does not look like - thats a start !

Pallid Harrier - Circus Macourus
April 2010 - Pivot Fields, Dubai

14 : Long-billed Sunbird

Long-billed Sunbird - Nectarinia lotenia

There are 130 species of these delightful birds according to my Collin's Birds of the World. I had never seen a sunbird until I moved to Dubai and specifically hunted one down in Safa Park. These are small birds usually but this species seen in Sri Lanka is much larger than the sunbirds I am used to seeing in Dubai.

The bills are all adapted for probing different 'makes and shapes' of flowers. They are filling the same niche as new world humming birds but are completely unrelated. It's what you call convergent evolution. Both families of birds have independantly developed long bills adapted to take advantage of the high energy food available from flowers, irridescent plumage and they can hover.

Again I'd recomend a delve into the books of Dawkins. Seals and whales are a good example of convergent evolution - both are mammals adapted to return to the sea. A whale is closer to a pig though in evolutionary terms than a seal which is of itself closer to a dog or a wolf. They have got back into the sea along a different path.

This Long-billed Sunbird really does what it says on the tin. I was suprised to learn when reading up today that they also take spiders to get a bit more protein with their nectar when breeding. This long bill is obviously highly adapted for very long tubular flowers but it also allows them to catch spiders lurking in the bottom of the flower bowls.

The photograph was taken of a bird resting on the roof of a bungalow we stayed at in Sri Lanka called Ellertons near Kandy.

Long-billed Sunbird - Nectarinia Lotenia
Hills near Kandy, Sri Lanka - 10 April 2011.

13 : Brown Shrike

Brown Shrike - Lanius Cristatus.

I am not sure if this is an ordinairy Brown Shrike or perhaps a sub-species from the Philipines. I am not counting sub-species in my long journey. I have to give myself half a chance. I am posting this as a Brown Shrike. I think it probably is just a Brown Shrike. The Philipine subspecies has a "clear grey crown and mantle" which is not so evident on this bird.

This is my last catch-up post to put me back on a bird a day. This is not best photo today but if you read "The Task" you will note that I reserve the right to post bad photos as necessary in order to "stamp" a species on my web-site.

Yes you guessed it - Yala again, Sri Lanka. One of the 80 or 90 new species I saw in 48 hours. At one point I was seeing one of these birds every 20 or so yards. I love shrikes. They are an "ooh ah" bird for me. Probably because they are extinct as a regular breeding bird in the UK where I come from. The Red Backed Shrike held out in Wales and the West country for a while but then died out at its last regular breeding location in 1989. It is only seen on migration now. I expect there is the odd breeding pair but if there is they will be hushed up. So to me shrikes are rare, beautiful and exotic creatures. What a shame.

They are pugnacious viscious little things and take all manner of small prey from large insects to small rodents, chicks and reptiles. I expect in Sri Lanka geckos, small skinks and the like would have a good chance of appearing on the menu.

This was a first for me and quite a handsome bird with the black bandit mask and buffy tones. I will make up for the poor shot of the bird with another Yala shot. You can see elephants in the same sort of numbers as you can in Africa - delightful.

Brown Shrike - Lanius Cristatus
Yala National Aprk, Sri Lanka, 15-17 April 2011

12 : Pied Avocet

Pied Avocet - Avocetta recurvirostra

This is another bird that has suffered from a double barrelled name change.

This picture was taken in 2009 at Minsmere in August. My brother is lucky enough to live about an hour's drive from this place so its somewhere we'll go to together when I am visiting him or my parents who are also in Suffolk.

Avocets are another UK conservation success story. Rendered extinct in the UK by the usual collection of pressures (shooting, habitat loss, egg collecting) it wasn't until the second world war that the Avocet staged a return. Part of the defence against invasion was to flood areas of coastal East Anglia. Creeping back across the North Sea from Holland the birds took hold once again.

The first stronghold was on Havergate Island where my brother has done a stint as a volunteer. The first breeding pairs appeared at Minsmere about the same time - they are of course now the symbol of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and are well established at this flagship reserve.

Minsmere itself and the whole East Anglian coast is now threatened by flooding from rising sea levels. I am not sure of the ins and outs but as I understand it if we give up the sea defences as we did in world war two large areas of brackish marsh will be created. Avocets could be one of the species to benefit from such a retreat.I have not read enough about the whole issue.

The birds themselves are exquisite. The long upcurved and needle thin bill is sythed backwards and fowards through the water to catch small larvea and other marine animals. Their looks do decieve - they are agressive birds and will mob other birds and bully and fight to carve out an area in which to feed and breed. The long bluish legs aren't all visible in this picture but they will swim to shallower water to find different spots to feed. They are long legged and graceful. The black and white plumage is truly one of the birding greats.

I had not seen an Avocet when I was young. I couldn't travel and you still had to go to either Havergate (which needed a special pass) or Minsmere to ge a view. The birds have had an explosion over the last 10 or 15 years - colonising the UK right round the coast. As I moved North they followed me up to the Dee estuary in Cheshire. My first Avocet was at Welney WWT in Cambridgeshire from the main hide when I was an adult. They just do not disapoint. Its good news that for many birders they will now just list them off at the end of a day as a relatively common species. In some circles they are beginning to be considered a pest as they do shift other rarer waders away from feeding sites.For me every time they have turned up somewhere new I have just felt very pleased.I think established populations of birds that belong hold more interest than wind blown rarities. Avocets belong in Britain and again, with half a chance, they made it home.

(Pied) Avocet - Avosetta recurvirostra
Minsmere - August 2009

11 : Common Whitethroat

Common Whitethroat - Sylvia Communis

This is a bird that you normally hear before you see. The rasping, chiding calls are a typical sound of hedgerow and scrub right across Europe. This is a typical view on a patch of gorse next to the sea.

This is not a bird you can dismiss as a "Little Brown Job" and I invite you to click twice and blow it up to appreciate the colours in the plumage. That warm rusty tone in the wing will tell you its not a Lesser Whitethroat, its namesake and confusion species.

The Common Whitethroat migrates right across the Sahara before crossing into Europe through Spain each year. This makes it very vulnerable to weather events in Africa like droughts and the population in Europe can suffer real difficulties at times.

I think is a bird that most people in Europe should be able to see on a walk down a country lane. Its a doorway past those "first birds" to a realisation of just what is out there. I had a period when I did not bird (to cool for school) and then when I came back to it I decided to "start again" ignoring any UK ticks and going to out to find everything again for myself. I can remember the elation when I got first good view of a Whitethroat propped in a Bush in Erith Marshes in South London. When you think to yourself that its flown all the way from the Sahel it cannot help but fascinate.

This bird was snapped on a sea cliff in the North West of the UK I think in early 2008. Very satisfying. Nothing Common about them to me.

A further bird here caught a few years later with the new camera in Barn Elms WWT and added to the site

Common Whitethroat - Sylvia communis
June 2008 - North West Britain - Sea Cliff

10 : Great Crested Grebe

Great Crested Grebe - Podiceps cristatus

I was in the UK this week and had a few technical difficulties which stopped me from posting. I will need to brush up on my mobile posting otherwise this project will be dead in the water before its started.

So this is Tuesday's post and number 10 and I thought I'd try and go live. I made a dash to Barn Elms WWT, London just the other side of the Thames from Hammersmith. This site has been open for a good 11 or 12 years and its somewhere I used to regulary spend time at the weekends. It was orginally a small resevoir that has now been turned into a fantastic little wetland.

Spring is definately in full swing. Barn Elms proves that if you give nature half a chance it will reward you. Overwintering Bitterns in central London for example ranks for me as a modern miracle. On an ealy evening in June you can catch a beautiful of "suite" of birds - Little Ringed Plover, Sand Martin, Kingfisher, Reed, Chettis and Sedge Warblers - perhaps a Hobby will sweep in.

Great Crested Grebes are one of the birds that really started the conservation movement. There's a marvelous programme and book "Birds Britannica" that details the story. They were trapped perilously to extinction in Britain for hat feathers. At one point in 1860 a rough count had them down to just 42 pairs in the whole of Britain. The first conservation legislation was passed in the next decade and a shift in attitudes began about the way wild birds were looked after. There are now 12,000 breeding birds in Britain driven largely by the creation of gravel pits to dig out materials for building (there's a irony),

For any young birdwatcher in Britain they are probably one of the first "wow" species that they come across. A list with a Great Crested Grebe on, a duck or two, a kestrel and a long tailed tit would keep me happy of an afternoon. They are easy to see and accesible (everyone has a park or river or lake near them)and in Spring they put on displays that can captivate you for hours.

This bird is carrying at least one stripey chick on its back. I only had an hour or so at Barn Elms before I had to dash off for a meeting. It is a poor snap and at some stage I will post some better pictures below. But for now it was lovely to see an old friend and then to read up today to see how well they are now doing in the UK.

Nature just needs half a chance.

I am dropping the points system I orginally started with - it is all so subjective and I am not sure it adds anything to life or my posts. I will rave about some birds and appreciate others. I cannot score a Great Crested Grebe against a Malabar Pied Hornbill. It just does not work does it.

Great Crested Grebe -Podiceps cristatus
Barn Elms WWT, London - Tuesday 17 May 2011

9 : Indian Nightjar

Indian Nightjar - Caprimulgus indicus

The bulk of shots you get of nightjars are usually on the ground like this during the daytime. They are of course nocturnal and spend the evenings and nights hawking for moths.

This bird was camped out on the safari track in Yala and I have to admit that this shot was taken by my wife who was on the right (left) side of the safari truck. It is wonder that it didn't get run over or disturbed. It was only when we got home a couple of weeks later that we noticed the fluffy object to the right of the bird - I am sure there is a chick resting on the ground. They must rely utterly on the camouflage and remaining prefectly still. We saw dozens of mongooses and monitor lizards while in the park, there also jackals and foxes and wildcats.

Well the camouflage works because we couldn't see the chick in real life looking directly down on this bird from the safari truck - perhaps a distance of 8 feet or so. I have always wondered about ground nesting as a strategy - it seems so precarious. I presume these birds can start another brood quite easily if the young get predated and that they have a long season to get lucky. They are a large bird so I assume they have a few seasons to get it right.

Pot luck getting this shot - the truck was turning the corner and the spotter on the passenger side saw this bird tucked on the side of the track. Nobody saw the chick and presumably the genetic clockwork just tells it to stay absolutely still - even when the parent is off hawking insects.

At the end of an afternoon's game drive the headlights would be turned on on for the last twenty minutes or so getting home as it got too dark to see the way - one night we had a nightjar chasing the moths that were dancing down the headlight beams - to all the world like a giant moth itself. Moths themselves have compeletly independantly evolved the same cryptic camouflage for staying still on the branch of a tree all day. The solution that works - as an accidental adaptation - just gets passed on if successful. With moths apparently in London it has taken only thirty years or so in some species for the colouration to change back to lighter tones now that the soot has been cleaned off the buildings and trees. The lighter toned moths are better camouflaged and the darker ones stand out and are eaten. Its mind boggling. I recomend any of Dawkins books - Blind Watchmaker, Selfish Gene etc. Once you get it in your head that adaptation is "unknowing" and accidental then it becomes even more amazing.

Indian Nightjar (and chick) - Caprimulgus indicus
April 17 2011 - Yala National Park, Sri Lanka

8 : Brown Fish-owl

Brown Fish Owl - Ketupa zeylonensis

Back to Yala National Park in Sri Lanka again this morning. Also our first owl.

I have to admit that I would not have seen this bird on my own. We did a series of 4 game drives over three days and our driver Stuart, a Burgher (white Sri Lankan)and his spotter were very good at suddenly stopping and pointing out birds for me. The big draws at Yala are the leopards and the elephants and we were lucky with these. Over the course of our short stay in the park I saw something like 90 birds species that were all new to me. It was hard to keep up and I am definately going back.

You always feel very privilaged to see an owl. It is always a special moment. This was a big owl - perhaps 50 cm + in height.

These are birds of tropical South Asia with a large range. They are generally nocturnal so this bird must have been roosting. They mainly feed on fish , frogs and aquatic crustacea. He was sat in a fairly large tree next to what they call a tank in Sri Lanka (a big resevoir or lake) and very close to the track. The sheer number and diversity of birds in this place was breathtaking.

Yala - heaven

I think Yala has put me off the deep end again with my desire to get out and see more.

Brown Fish-owl - Ketupa zeylonensis
15-18 April 2011, Yala National Park, Sri Lanka
74 Points

7 : Arctic Tern

Arctic Tern - Sterna Paradisaea

I took this picture in Iceland in I think June 2008 - I cannot remember the exact date. I went up to Iceland 4 days early for a friends "stagdo". I went Whale watching and birding and then joined the scrum for the festivities in Rekyavic.

This was not the first time I had seen an Arctic Tern. I finally caught up with them in Islay on a family holiday. My brother had declared that he and Uncle Allan had seen one at Fingringhoe Wick when we kids. It sounded so exotic. Actually it was !! Good on you Mark - it took me another twenty-five years to see one.

I have a favourite book - Macmillan Guide to Bird Identification. It is a little series of essays on confusion species for UK birders. There is a short chapter on telling Common and Arctic terns apart. In Islay I went down a checklist - longer winged, longer tail, deeper forked, transluscent primaries, trailing edge to wing with a thin black line. Shorter legged - not sure I've seen that. Sitting on a shingle nest I could see that they were different. Click on the photo above and you will see the thin eyeliner down the trailing edge - but look at that tail - streamers !

In essence though when you realise the journeys these birds make - Arctic to Antarctic, year on year you can easily see which birds are Arctic Terns and which are Commons. It may be subtle but they are flat race horses in comparison to point to pointers. They are bulit to perfection for long distance travel.

In Iceland I had few issues with worrying about whether they were Common Terns or Arctic Terns. There are 250,000-500,000 breeding pairs of Arctic Terns in Iceland. As far as I know Common Terns do not breed in Iceland so I was fairly safe calling this as an Arctic Tern without running my identification list.

Up there where the sun never sets and the air is crisp they do look to all the world like angels. The sun shines through those wings and they power across blue skies. They seem in their element in Iceland.

I leave you with a picture of my mate David - he came a day or two early and ended up having birds and whales and stuff inflicted on him. I think he enjoyed it.

You can't really tell its David. I am not sure that the picture of the Arctic Tern is the best. It does remind of a lovely moment - these birds are very special.

Arctic Tern - Sterna paradisaea
Iceland - June 2008
78 Points

6 : Herring Gull

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Herring Gull - Larus argentatus

Can I be really honest. I just do not like gulls. They love waste sites and eat detritus, they are hard to identify, they pretend to be things you really want to see. They need some good PR.

A Herring Gull I admit is a proper sea gull. This one is next to some lovely seathrift on a sandstone sea cliff near the Lake District. Not a spot of rubbish in sight. They are one of the archetypal sounds of the english seaside. They serenade each ice cream you buy.

This is a picture I can benchmark. As we go on I can give myself a little class in gull identification. Part of the trouble with gulls is how they age - I have made life easy by choosing a mature herring gull here. This is a medium to large sized gull with pink legs and a yellow bill with a red spot on its lower mandible. It has black and white primaries. It has a light grey back and wing coverts. It is a Herring Gull. I will reluctantly try and explain why any other gull I post is not a Herring Gull.

I have spent hours sifting through black headed gulls looking for mediteranean gulls. I have listened to guys in hides explaining to me why a first winter Yellow Legged Gull is not a Herring Gull only for the next bloke to enter the hide and say "Ah - a Caspian Gull". I bought myself a video narrated by Bill Oddie and learned and forgot gull identification a dozen times. I don't think I am on my own in having a slight Gull issue. Couple the Identification problems with the smell of a landfill site and I just got to where I wondered why I was bothering. I get a bit annoyed by the chick stealing as well. That's wrong because they are only making a living.

He is handsome I guess. I should not write off all Gulls before we have started. I can already tell you that I will be making an exception for Little Gull. I have a good story to go with Laughing Gulls as well.

For now its safe to say that my dream birdwatching moment would not involve a Gull. Please do tell me what I am missing if you stop by and are an ardent Gull lover.

Herring Gull - Larus argentatus
Bempton Cliffs - Cumbria
Late May 2008

3 : European Robin

European Robin - Erithacis rubecula

I like this picture. I think it is one of the few feather perfect pictures of a bird I have ever taken and it is no suprise.

First of all to clear something up the inclusion of the "European" is to avoid confusion with the other Robins that will have to meet on our 27 year journey (I am still grappling with the sheer stupidty of this task). All bird names have been given at least two names now. You'll find lots of "Northerns" as we go along for example.

I am not sure exactly what larger bird family this Robin falls him - some books have them with Chats and Thrushes and my Collins Birds of the world has them with "Old World Flycatchers". We won't worry for now and the confusion perhaps illustrates a point. Around the world there are dozens of robins that fall in different families but still have the name Robin. The nicknames also for many birds around the world are Robins and thats because as European men spread and travelled it would have been one of the very few species that they all would have been familiar with from home. Any nice looking, confiding and similar sized bird would be labelled a Robin.

Man and Robin must have formed a bond thousands of years ago the first time that cultivation took place. When I started gardening I used to take great delight in any robin that would come and grub about as I turned soil. They hop and then look at you sideways out of that big shiny dark eye. Waiting for the next turn of the trowel or spade.

This picture was taken at RSPB Conwy, the Christmas before last when we flew home for the holiday to see my wife's Mum. I remember trudging round the lake that day and seeing a few distant views of some ducks, the odd Great Tit, a Coot or two but really nothing special - and then - oh "just" a Robin, sat on a post by a hide. I had had nothing much else to look at. As I did though it dawned on me that in Dubai I would not be seeing too many Robins. I took a picture. Like those first European wanderers and settlers I would be looking at new Robins now.

Its a feather perfect picture because thats how close a Robin will let you come. They will let you feed them by hand over time. So not just a Robin after all or a cliche from a Xmas card. Actually the Robin that made me realise I had left England for quite some time. I think you appreciate some things from a distance.

European Robin - Erithicus rubecula
RSPB Conwy - 28 December 2009

2 : Common Sandpiper

Common Sandpiper - Tringa hypaleucos

Probably one of my favourite waders. I think they might be every travelling birders' friend. A touchstone.

I live in Dubai now. I have been here about 2 and a half years. Its not everybody's cup of tea but if you take the politics out of Dubai you are left with an awful lot of birds. I saw this Common Sandpiper overwintering in the man made harbour next to the Jumeirah Beach Hotel. In amongst the luxury yachts perched on the concrete of the Jetty he reminded what great travellers birds are. Common Sandpipers seem to turn up everywhere next to water - and especially at migration time. They are quite confiding but if you get too close they will set off on a big semi circular flight to get about 30 or 40 yards ahead or behind you. They fly low over the water with stiff wingbeats and show a white bar along the top edge of the flight feathers. They have a fairly characteristic bob or flick of the tail and pick small insects and larvae from rocks on river edges and shorelines. So here he was a degree or two North of tropics - I'd just bought my Mum and Dad and family a pizza for lunch and we were walking it off along the jetty. Queue "family man" dancing up and down the walkway trying to get a snap of this bird.

When I came back to birding as an adult I started looking for a "patch" to call my own. I lived in South London and worked in the City so I started to regulary walk along a stretch of river from Thamesmeade to Erith. Over time and with the passing of the seasons you could start to predict when Common Sandpipers would turn up. But where were they going or coming from ?

They nest by running water and you find them (if you are British birder) in the sorts of places where you also find Grey Wagtails and Dippers. For about 4 years we lived in the North West and the Lake District was a couple of hours away. We took a cottage one Witsen (Late May) and not far from us was a typical upland small river. So here is a Common Sandpiper - back where he or she "belongs". My kids were paddling nearby and the sun was out. A real jam sandwich with white bread English day. My guess was that there was a nest nearby in amongst the shingle, rocks and low bushes on the shore as there was a lot of disapearing off and furtiveness. Again a one to one with a bird and finally an idea of where they all go.This was the first time I ever saw a Common Sandpiper next to an upland stream.

The bird overwintering in Dubai could now be next to some river in upland Iran or Georgia or the Turkish mountains.

Common Sandpiper - you always turn up (predictably) when I least expect it and you always have a travellers story to tell.

Common Sandpiper - Tringa Hypaleucos
May 2007 - Lake District/December 2010 Jumeirah Beach Hotel Dubai
75 Points

1 : Chestnut Headed Bee-eater

Chestnut Headed Bee-eater - Merops leschenaulti

I might as well start with a bang and not a wimper. To me this is bird porn. I took this picture a couple of weeks ago in the Yala National Park in South-East Sri Lanka. You can click on the picture for a slightly blown up view.

There are 25 species of Bee-eater in the world distributed across Southern Europe, Southern Asia, Africa and Australia - quite frankly I am convinced that if you have seen one you have not seen them all ! Most - 18 out of 25 species are found in Africa. I've never birded in Africa and consequently I think I've only seen 4 or 5 species so far in my life (I am currently consolidating my world list from various holiday lists, ticked guides and notebooks etc.) I certainly only have a picture of two species I think (I'll save that for a rainy day). Africa here we come ! If I stick with this project this will be the beauty of it. I will let you know from my rocking chair when I am heading off to Africa and then I'll be able to tell you if it was worth the journey - worth pouring over the books. If you are a commited bird man you will know the answer. Collecting without keeping;hunting without killing.

Bee-eaters perform. They hawk for insects and chatter all the time, looping and whirling around their colleagues. I have seen perhaps 20 in a tree together in Southern Spain. They seem very social birds. You will rapidly realise that I am no ornithologist - just a bloke who likes birds.I will try not to read in human emotions - but these are birds that seem to really enjoy going about their daily routine.

This individual stayed perfectly still on a branch about 8 feet from the side of our safari truck while we were on an early morning game drive. A perfect jewel. The lemon yellow, the chestnut on the back, the greens from a childrens felt tip set. For me amongst all the leopards and elephants this was another perfect moment.

Later at our riverside "glamp" I watched a pair on an overhanging branch. In turns they would dive down to catch something only to pop up right next to their mate. I stopped following the flying bird with my bins and started watching the empty space on the branch - after a while I stopped worrying about whether the second bird was about to pop up. This was a clearly a pair. In some species I learn from Collins, a mated pair will stay together for life. Now I don't know if thats true of Chestnut Headed Bee-Eaters - its a different strategy I guess from species to species but within a season they are monogomous. It shows. If this pair had been together for a season or two then how special. If they were both starting out for their first season or just one season and were bonding, then again - how very special.

After a chatter and a look around together off the other bird would swoop. Turn by turn. This went on for at least half an hour and with a Lion beer, a notebook full of new birds and my feet up it doesn't get much better.

I did not get a photo of the pair. I will need a big fat Canon lens and some spare cash. I got a good photo of the individual in the morning sun a few feet from the truck. My wife says that I was lucky with the quality of the branch for this photograph. Quite frankly I think they would look good on a breezeblock in the middle of a rubbish dump.

The family Meropidae - "a favourite with birdwatchers" says Collins Birds of the World. Well its a good place to start. Í've thought about some sort of points system - a bit like Parker points for fine wine. I think birds are a bit like a good wine - the moment, the atmosphere, the behaviour, the light - it all comes together so it has to be a very very subjective.

I am a bloke who likes birds, not a poet and certainly not an ornathologist. A scoring system will not elevate the task to anything more or less worthy. Every bird has its place and value whether I like them personally or not. There is birding Nirvana and I'll explain it when I post about it. Rest assured sitting with a beer next to a Sri Lankan river writing up your notes and being entertained by a pair of Chestnut Headed Bee-eaters is about as good as it has got so far.

15-18 April 2011, Yala National Park Sri Lanka
Chestnut Headed Bee-Eater - Merops leschenaulti
+ a very good start to what will have to be a lifetimes' work
Bon Voyage and happy hunting