HOS Bird Ringing at Blashford Lakes- 20/12/25

Today was highly anticipated. After the disappointment of the last ringing day at Titchfield Haven had been cancelled, the weather was promising, and the ringing went ahead. I was really looking forward to it, seeing the birds up close, and we possibly had the chance to release a few. There hadn't been anything reported at Blashford that would be new for this year, but I didn't care because that was not the purpose of this trip. The craziness starts next week with trying to see new species. 

I arrived at Fareham Station at 8:00, was picked up by my two birder friends there, and we drove straight to Blashford to get some birding in before the ringing session.

We arrived at 9:00 and were met with the car park for the Tern Hide being completely flooded, resulting in the hide being closed. After wading through the water, we went up the path to the viewing platform to see if we could see anything on Ibsley.

There were hundreds of birds on Ibsley, as expected, mainly made up of Coots. Tufted Ducks, Pochard, Wigeon, Cormorants, Gadwall, and various species of gulls were also present.

The gulls were probably just a bit too far out to be certain of ID. There had been an adult Yellow-legged Gull recently seen, which would be a new species for this year, and one I have not seen since I started birding (saw one on the Farne Islands 8 years ago, before I was into birding). The adult bird in the centre of the photo appears to have yellow legs, as reviewed from the photos, and a seemingly paler back than Lesser Black-backed Gulls. However, the bird was very far away, so the quality of the photos hinders identification. I'm not entirely sure what I believe it is yet. Its back definitely seems paler than a Lesser Black-backed Gull, and comparing the legs of the Herring Gull (left bird in the photo), the legs do appear a different colour (far right large gull in the photo).

After a while longer of scanning to no avail, we headed in the direction of the ringing station and decided to kill off the remaining time before the ringing in the Woodland Hide.

Chaffinches, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Coal Tits, Robins, and a Nuthatch were seen close up, but the lighting was pretty bad so I couldn't get great photos. All very pretty birds.

Time was up, so we walked over to the Visitor Centre, where we met Keith Betton (we hadn't met before) and chatted for a bit. He mentioned how close he was to 9,000 species in the world- wowee! 

Another Nuthatch was feeding nearby.

10:00 finally rocked around, so we walked to the ringing station where we met Brenda, who was going to be taking the session. We were shown how to hold the birds, and then had a first look at a bird in the hand- a Great Tit. It was so tiny and cute. It's only when the bird is in the hand and not with its feathers all fluffed out that you realise how truly small they are.

We were taught how to age and sex most of the birds we saw, which included a Wren, a Dunnock, a beautiful male Nuthatch, truly a pleasure to see up so close, plenty of Blue Tits, Great Tits and Coal Tits, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, and probably best of all, a Great Spotted Woodpecker, but more on that later. 

I personally first released a Blue Tit, which had a good go at trying to eat me alive before it flew off. It was so cool holding a truly wild bird in the hand, so small and beautiful. I also released a Great Tit and a male Greenfinch, which was so cool. 

In terms of birds that were just cool to see in the hand, the Great Spotted Woodpecker won, closely followed by the Nuthatch. It was so beautiful and incredible to see its spotted wing open for a good length of time, rather than the usual split-second viewing we get in the wild. I took some photos of the woodpecker.

The birds were all handled with great care and settled down eventually after a minute or two of trying to peck at our hands. Ringing is a great work that is very important to understand the birds' movement, population numbers, conservation and many other things.

We decided to go to Ivy Lake to try for the Bittern, but a while spent there produced nothing, with no sign of anything interesting. We walked back to the car, where a Song Thrush was singing, and discussed what we thought best to do, with no reports of anything interesting around. 

We spent a few more minutes on a bank scanning Ibsley, with most of the species from earlier and a few Mute Swans and Canada Geese seen, before heading back home.

A very different but enjoyable experience, seeing the birds so close was just incredible. A very fun trip. Still not sure about the gull- might send some emails and try and get a certain ID- if you do have any thoughts, please do comment with advice. The next two weeks are going to be a lot of fun I hope. I'm going to be doing a Selsey Big Day at some point. I've got a gold Stagecoach bus ticket (or something like that), which gives me travel on all the buses, so I'm going to get to Chichester nice and early and then bird the peninsula via buses throughout the day. The aim won't be the year list but simply a day list. Try and see as many species as possible in one day- I'm really looking forward to it, although I'm going to have to be sensible with camera batteries... not sure two can last a whole day! Elsewhere, I'm not sure there's much about, with Hampshire especially being quiet bar the returning Ferruginous Duck at Brownwich. The year list is still stuck at 204 after that Ferruginous last week... December has been very quiet so far. But now it's the holidays, I will have a lot more time for going around and seeing more cool birds. We'll have to see. 

Anyway, good night, and a big thank you to all who arranged the ringing and made it possible, really enjoyed it.

Ferruginous Duck Twitch @ Brownwich Pond- 10/12/25

A perfectly normal Wednesday. I had just finished an hour's practice of a rather difficult section of  Bach's Partita in D Minor for Solo Violin, and my fingers were sore. It's very fiddly (no pun intended). It's my older brother's birthday, but he was out at college all day, so there wasn't much going on. The afternoon was free in theory, but I still had to take the dog out and needed to finish some more school. So when I checked Birdguides, I wasn't prepared for what I saw. The Ferruginous Duck was back at Brownwich. This is its third time in the area (I believe), and I have dipped it both times before. The last time I was there, earlier this year, I came the morning after it was found, but there was no duck to be seen. We are due to be in the area at some point soon, so I wondered whether I might be able to go and see it then. But after a bit of thinking, I decided against this. I really didn't want to risk missing it again. 

Needless to say, the schoolwork was finished with great speed, the dog taken out, and a very hasty lunch eaten.

I have to make an admission. I went out "birding" on Saturday on my biggest, in terms of distance, twitch I've been on. All the way to Eastbourne in East Sussex. Over 6 hours of journeying overall. I went there for a Black Guillemot that had been there for 8 days... I really did think it would still be there. But anyway, it wasn't, and all the birds that were seen were two Great Crested Grebes. It was a bit of a dismal time, with the awful wind rubbing salt into the already painful and expensive wound. I got back rather late and had to be in Guildford for the evening, so I couldn't get a blog out on Saturday, and thought it would be a bit of a waste of a day off on Monday.

The terrible dip on Saturday was, of course, playing on my mind as I biked to the station. I really didn't want to dip yet another rare bird in the space of a week.

I arrived at the station in good time. My plan was to catch the 13:13 train and get to the pond actually at 14:30, then take a 16:00 train back to Petersfield in time for dinner. Normally, with trains, plans work well. 

Today was different. 

It was only after I was on the train that I learnt there were large problems on the line at Cosham- directly in my path to Swanwick. 

Very long story short, I had to get off at Fareham instead of Swanwick, was forced to change at Fratton instead of Havant and was delayed by half an hour. Dozens of trains were cancelled, so all the lines were a bit chaotic.

Anyways, I arrived at Fareham station at about 14:30 and arrived at Brownwich at 15:00, with the light already starting to fade.

As I biked up the path to the pond itself, I saw that two of my birding friends who live in the area were already on site. It had been with them that I had come to this exact place about 10 months ago in search of the very bird I was back here again for. I nervously peddled over to them. "Is it gone?" I asked, fully expecting the news that it had again departed before I laid my eyes on it.

"Nope, it's still here." Came the reply.  

I got off my bike, put my rucksack heavily on the ground and scrambled to get my camera and binoculars out. After a few seconds that seemed to go on for ages, I took a look out at the Tufted Ducks behind a tree. And there, finally, was the Ferruginous Duck.

It was obscured by a tree; we were peering through some bushes at it. The lighting was awful and getting worse. But did I really care? No. I'd finally seen the bird. And what a beauty it was. The bright eye really stood out. We moved to another bit a bit further away to see it clearer. I got some OK-ish shots.

An Egyptian Goose was in very good lighting, not too far away from the "Fudge" Duck.

We hoped that the duck would move closer and into better lighting, but unfortunately, it never did.

Ferruginous Ducks are found mainly in Southern Europe and are rare vagrants to the UK. About 10-15 birds are seen a year, but this number is largely inflated due to escapes from collections. This one is unringed, fully winged and has shown all the hallmarks of being a wild bird. The fact that it has returned now for three years running is also a good sign. 

I was, and I think this is the best word to describe it, elated. Seeing a bird is always so much more satisfying when you've put many hours into it. Although it is so frustrating at the time, in the end, it is so much more fulfilling. A brilliant lifer that compensates for the dip on Saturday. British Year List up to 204, and life list at 211. Incredible. 

Only now and again was the bird visible at decent range, but when it was, the views were brilliant, although the lighting was awful.

It wasn't ever diving, but preened often.

We walked around a bit in vain trying to find another place to photograph the duck, but a lovely sunset was seen, and a huge flock of pigeons, gulls and Egyptian Geese flew up from a field.

By now, it had become apparent that the situation with the trains had gotten no better. Quite the opposite. When I checked, it looked as though all of them were cancelled. All of them. Ouch. From both Swanwick and Fareham, nothing seemed to be running towards Portsmouth or from there up to Petersfield. After a few minutes of rather pointless messages that didn't really get us anywhere in arranging how to get home, I decided to just enjoy the bird and freestyle my way home.

It was out again in the open, but by now the light was practically gone.

After another twenty minutes or so, I checked Trainline again and saw that while nearly everything was cancelled, there was one train running that would get me back before dinner, from Swanwick at 16:38. It was about 15:40, so I decided to leave at about 16:10 to get to the station in good time. 

The duck had disappeared, but before long was out again. I got some final photographs before we all came to an agreement that, as the bird started swimming into the reeds, there was no point staying any further, and we walked back along the path to the car park.

By the time I left the car park, it was 14:15. I checked the route to Swanwick Station and was gobsmacked to see that my ETA was exactly one, yes one minute before my train got in. I sped off. Halfway down the road, I wondered how long it would take to get to Fareham and was relieved to see that I would be in time for the train if I went to Fareham. I got home without too many complications, but still missed a few connections due to late trains and tried to catch trains that didn't exist. It was, as I previously said, chaos. 

I'm sitting here on my bed, bleary-eyed and in need of sleep, thrilled with the day's happenings. I had kind of forgotten the possibility of this returning this year, so it was such a great surprise when it was reported. Another vagrant for 2025, and my first lifer of December, which has started off much slower than I was expecting.  The Goldeneye, a week ago today, were absolutely brilliant though. Life is a bit manic at the moment, but hopefully I will have more time to go out once it's the holidays. I am hoping to do a Selsey Peninsula big day at some point with a bus pass to get around, but not much is going on there currently, other than hundreds of bananas on the beach, so I am waiting for things to start turning up. Hopefully soon. Anyway, good night.

Many thanks to the finder, as always:)

Staines Reservoirs 04/12/25

I've mentioned a few times my intent to go to Staines at some point, and I was very happy when the opportunity arose to go with two other birders up to the mammoth reservoirs. The main hope was Goldeneye, which I haven't caught up with yet this year...somehow. There had also been a Lesser Scaup present, the usual Black-necked Grebes, and a Great Northern Diver. The Goldeneye would put my year list up to 203.

After a nice journey, chatting about birding, we found a place to park and started walking up the path to the causeway.

A few Magpies were on the fences and amongst the sheep as we made our way round the bend and into view of the absolutely mammoth south basin. Last time, I was extremely surprised at how big they were, and even though I was expecting it this time, it still seemed much larger than expected.

The water levels were lower this time, meaning the birds were all slightly further away, but not too much. A very large group of ducks, mainly Tufted Ducks, also held some Pochard, Mallard, and Wigeon. Black-headed Gulls and a Common Gull were also visible.

A small shape out in the middle of the basin looked very grebe-like. Indeed, this was the first Black-necked Grebe of the day.

The sun was, annoyingly, directly behind the south basin, so photographing things was virtually impossible, but it put very good light on the north basin, so it evened things out.

Before long, another Black-necked Grebe was visible, much closer, on the north basin. It showed brilliantly at times before swimming off.

We continued walking along, seeing another two Black-necked Grebes further out, and plenty more Tufted Ducks and Coots.

Another birder said he had had the Great Northern Diver on the north basin, and lo and behold, there they were. You might rightly question my use of the plural "they" in that sentence, as there had been only one. But there wasn't just one, not two but three on the northern side of the north basin. Really, such cool birds.

I continued scanning through all the ducks on the north basin, when I was called over to have a look at some ducks on the south basin- Goldeneye. They were very far out and into the sun, but through binoculars, the views weren't too bad. The males were doing their display, throwing their heads back and splashing. Very comical.

A very cropped shot.

With the lighting so bad and the birds so far away, we decided to continue on.

A Great Crested Grebe was relatively close to the bank, along with another Black-necked Grebe. Two of the Great Northern Divers were much closer.

Things were going great. The Black-necked Grebes were showing well, the Great Northern Divers had been seen well, and we had picked up Goldeneye. Year list up to 203... incredible. Common Goldeneye is a species abundant in the UK, found all over the coasts. Still, a very cool bird and one I really needed for the year list.

With no sign of anything new around, I set down to try and photograph the Black-necked Grebe that was nearby. It was constantly diving, which made it difficult, but I got some decent shots.

Brilliant birds. I have seen them this year, a trip to this very site over the summer. I was still enjoying every minute of them though.

A Red Kite flew around, and distantly a Buzzard was sat on a perch

Some Pied Wagtails, which had been present all around all day with some Meadow Pipits, finally perched for a photo.

After a while more looking around, with nothing else turning up, we decided there wasn't much point us staying at the reservoirs, and came to an agreement of going to Staines Moore.

A very nice time at Staines Moore produced some Ring-necked Parakeets, which are brilliant birds if a bit contreversial, plenty of Black-headed Gulls, Stonechats, Robins, Linnets, Little Egrets Black-headed Gulls, Dunnocks, a Cetti's Warbler and a Kestrel.

A very pretty place and one I want to visit again. Sadly, time was up, and we had to head home.

A really enjoyable trip, with some really, really great species seen. I'm still very happy with the Goldeneye. There isn't much about at the moment. I was hoping the Black Guillemot at Southsea would stay, but it seemed to drop in. The Red-necked Grebe at Weston is a possibility, but seems very erratic and unpredictable. It's a great start to December, only three (four now) days in and already a new bird. Who knows what the rest of the month will hold? There is definitely not a lack of possibilities. I need to get some sleep now, I'm going to have a look tomorrow to see if there are any possibilities for Saturday. The weather looks threatening, but could hold off.... hopefully. 

Hope everyone has had a good day and enjoyed some great birds, good night!