Nightjar and wheatear mysteries

Got back early this morning from 48 hours in Frankfurt. My main goal was to celebrate my grandmother's 97th birthday. But since I was there I arranged a visit to the scientific collections at Senckenberg Naturmuseum. I met up with the curator Dr. Gerald Mayr. Gerald was extremely friendly and cooperative - many thanks Gerald! I collected there data for my slow Nubian Nightjar project. Hopefully it will pick up soon. There are six Nubian Nightjars in the collection - 2 nubicus from Sudan, and 4 tamaricis from SW Yemen. 

Nubian Nightjars - tamaricis (left) and nubicus (right)

After I was done with the nightjars, out of curiosity, I asked Gerald to have a look at some 'black' wheatears. I hoped to find a lost warriae specimen. In between Black Wheatears from NW Africa I was amazed to find this small wheatear - clearly not leucura. It was collected by Dr. Eduard Ruppell in 1823. The label says 'Egyptien' but back in those days Egypt included parts of Sudan. It seems that in 1823 Ruppell indeed collected along the Nile in northern Sudan, close to Ambukol. But I will need to do more homework to try and come up with a more exact location and date.
This still needs to be confirmed, but it is probably a new specimen of 'Saxicola syenitica' - a lost and mysterious wheatear taxon, that is known from only one specimen collected by Theodor von Heuglin in 1852 in the same general area of northern Sudan / southern Egypt. The holotype is kept at Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, Austria. Check a description and discussion of the holotype here on Researchgate, or an abstract is available here if you're not on Researchgate.
I was in a great rush so didn't have time to take a full set of measurements. But I should be back in Frankfurt fairly soon. However, if it is 'Saxicola syenitica' as it provisionally seems, perhaps it can provide more insight to understand what this poorly known taxon is. Quite exciting. Surely more will be written about this specimen.

Putative 'Saxicola syenitica' (top) and Black Wheatear Oenanthe leucura (bottom)

A day in the Broads

Had an enjoyable day today birding in the Broads. Started off very early with James to check Breydon Water. Embarrassed to admit it was the first time I have properly birded this hotspot. We spent two hours there between 05:00 and 07:00 until we both had to return to our respective awaking families. As it always is at Breydon birds were very distant but there were lots of birds and stuff was coming and going all the time. Highlights (in UK standards) were 2 Spotted Redshanks, 1 White Stork from Thrigbey Wildlife Park, about 30 Med Gulls including one with a green ring that was too distant to read, and 15 Whimbrel. Good to meet up with the legendary Pete Allard.

In the afternoon I went with my family to Hickling Broad. It was very windy so no chance for Bittern of Reedling. We took the short boat trip which was great. I enjoyed views of Rush Hills Scrape from the hide on better side. We had 2 Little Gulls, 4 Spoonbills and about 10 Ruff there. Good conditions for shorebirds there but nothing out of the ordinary. 

Successful warblers

This morning I went with UEA ringing group to our constant site near Whitlingham. It's a lovely site with mixed habitat - wet marshy bits and nice scrub and low bushes. An early start (04:00) meant an impressive dawn chorus when we approached the ringing site. Especially nice were two reeling Groppers. Ringing was pretty good. In an era of declines, especially of trans-Saharan migrants, it was really nice to have a ringing session dominated by migrant warblers: Garden, Blackcap, Whitethroat, Chiffchaff, Willow and Sedge. All were present in good numbers and evidently had a good breeding season - lots of juveniles.

 Garden Warbler

Sedge warbler 

Willow Warbler - recently fledged juvenile

Reed Bunting - recently fledged juvenile

Our ringing site

Thanks to Iain, Phil and Thom for a great morning.

The Great Yes!

Normal day at work, trying to solve a spatial analysis problem. Needed a coffee after lunch.
13:05
Call from James: 'Do you need Great Knot?!?!'.
Me: 'Yes!'.
James: 'Pick you up from yours in 15'!.
And we were off to RSPB Titchwell. Relieved by the understanding that the tide was going up and the bird was showing, it was a relatively relaxed drive for such a monster bird. As soon as we joined the crowds the bird showed itself well, albeit very distant. I understand that compared to the previous birds it showed comparatively well (some were affectionately nicknamed Great Dot), but still it was probably 400 m away? However scope views were great. Luckily it was always showing in the front row of the tight flock, sleeping most of the time and not doing much while we were there. It must be one of the best shorebirds on earth, and sadly it's also Globally Threatened (EN). Those lovely rufous scapulars, and the black mottling on the breast sides - phwoaar! And it's so big, and the bill so long - what a bird. Great find by Chris Booth - 5th for the UK. Congrats!
Photography was very difficult. I tried three options and results from all are rubbish to be honest, more like water colours. This is with my old phone through Swarovski ATX95, no adapter so extremely shaky:

This is with my old 7D connected to the scope with TLS adapter:

And this is a huge crop of a photo using my 500 mm:

This is the original - really distant!

I have spent so many days looking for this bird in Israel but without success (only two records to date, last in 1991). I missed the Breydon Water one in 2014 by just a few days (recce visit before our big move to the UK). So it was great to see this new bird to my WP list. I really wanted this to happen after I couldn't go for the Spotted and Buff-breasted Sands last weekend. And this is one hell of a compensation...

Is it or is it not the same bird that was on Texel, Holland about a month ago? Maybe, hard to say. This is obviously the parsimonous explanation to the occurence of such a rare bird in the same neighbourhood (Texel is about 270 km from Titchwell but that's nothing for a bird that migrates normally from NE Asia to Australia). However, if it is the same it has moulted quite a bit, and now it's hard to pick up any diagnostic markings on it to confirm this.

Numbers of happy twitchers did build up through the afternoon, and by the time we left there must have been several hundreds lined up there. Good to meet up with lots of friends - such a quality bird in an accessible site does attract the crowds.

I just love Titchwell. What a great reserve. Exploding with birds there. Must admit I did not spend loads of time scanning for other stuff but still I did pick up a Med Gull and three out-of-season Common Gulls, two Ruff, Red-crested Pochard. The shorebird roost was impressive with over 1000 Red Knot (only few red ones in summer plumage, mostly failed breeders?), and nice numbers of Barwits and Blackwits too.

Many thanks to James for this little adventure.

Suffolk strikes again

So after Suffolk offered me a WP tick just last week, my neighbouring county 'struck gold' again. Yesterday a drake Blue-winged Teal was found at SWT's Carlton Marshes. I couldn't go yesterday but today I managed to sneak a quick visit into my work day. Less than an hour away from home I couldn't resist. Even though it's not exactly the best time of year for vagrant nearctic wildfowl, nor the best part of the country, local birding community seems to be taking this bird quite seriously, so who am I to ignore it? It may have escaped from a wildfowl collection somewhere - there are so many in East Anglia like this one, but I guess there are just as good chances it is a genuine vagrant.

Anyway, as I arrived on site I met a bunch of frustrated birders. A helicopter that had flown by flushed all the birds on the scrape, and the prime suspect was gone. But there I was to save the day ;-) - scanning through my brilliant Swarovski ATX95 I noticed a small group of ducks roosting in tall grass by the far side of the scrape. Despite the long distance, heat haze (in the UK!) and looking into the sun (in the UK!), I noted that one of them was THE bird - bingo! I got all the others on it, and the communal mood improved quickly. The duck spent most of its time sleeping, head tucked under wing. But occasionally it lifted its head up, and once it even stood up! Exciting times! Because of the tough conditions photography was almost pointless. This award-winning shot is the best I could achieve:

Blue-winged Teal

I really liked this reserve. Should return there with my kids. Pan-listers like James would appreciate it much more than a narrow-minded birder like myself, but there was enough stuff  to entertain me while waiting for the duck to lift its bloody head up: a Cuckoo was singing from the nearby woods; a Gropper reeled from the tall grass; and as a result of the warm weather raptors put on a relatively good show - five Buzzards together, a Red Kite and a Marsh Harrier.

Red Kite

In the bird-food section, I failed to find any Fen Spiders but I gave it not more than a couple of minutes; and among the large numbers of the commoner dragonflies and damselflies there were a couple of Norfolk Hawkers.

One embarrassing gap less

Today I cleared one of the largest gaps in my WP list - Greenish Warbler! I went to see the individual that was found yesterday at Gunton in Suffolk, just north of Lowestoft. I don't know who found it but whoever it was - it is a good find - not an easy site to work. Anyway, took advantage of the long daylight (light? not really, something like daydark) hours and drove down there after work. I joined the small group of birders there and very quickly I found it but it showed for about two seconds only, very brief but rather good views. Too brief for a photo. We stood around for another hour or so until it eventually showed for another 4-5 seconds... This time I was ready with my camera and fired off 15 images in 2 seconds... Shit light and it was about 20 m away hence the crap photos. But hey, better than nothing. Sadly it did not call or sing at all. Then I had to go home.

Greenish Warbler (Phylloscopus trochiloides)

Just a small practice for fun. In this image the very rounded wing is apparent, and the important in-hand ID features are visible:

I have a bit of a relationship with Greenish Warbler. Unrecorded in Israel, I was sure I would see it easily in the UK. I arrived in early September 2014 and there was one at Winterton a couple of weeks later, but I didn't have a car yet and knew nobody who could take me. Then about a year ago I missed one on Blakeney Point. Since then almost all my birding efforts in the UK were directed towards this little taiga breeder. I had only Greenish Warbler on my mind. And here it is, safely on my list. Now I need to find one myself.