Showing posts with label Red-tailed Wheatear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Red-tailed Wheatear. Show all posts

Wednesday, 19 October 2016

Four Wheatears

So I thought I'd set myself a bit of a challenge, see and photograph the four species of Wheatear that were available in South Mainland in the fastest time possible. Starting off with the Desert Wheatear at Scousburgh Sands, seen straight away and I watched it on the beach for 10 minutes as it gradually worked it's way closer, before flying to the north end of the beach at 08:20. Nearby the Isabelline Wheatear along the Noss road was showing but at a distance of 100 yards or more and never looked like getting any closer, so I moved on to the Pied Wheatear at Scatness, predictably it was still in Stinky Geo feeding on flies coming off the rotting seaweed. Three down, one to go. Yesterday there was a Northern with the Pied, but it was nowhere to be seen today, I kind of gave up on it and started walking back to the house along the coast, and on Sanblister Beach - a Northern Wheatear - all four! The time was now 09:02, so 4 species of Wheatear in 43 minutes!!! Thinking back, I remembered that I had seen 4 Wheatear species before in 1 day, Variable, Desert, Isabelline and Red-tailed, in the Great Rann of Kutch in Gujarat in 2010.
After all this excitement, it was back to thrashing the patch, totals as follows - a late Bonxie, 1 Pink-footed Goose, 7 Barnacle Geese, 1 Pintail, 12 Carrion Crows (normally a spring bird), 2 Waxwing, 7 Blackcaps, 5 Goldcrest, 2 Song Thrush and 2 Chiffchaff.
The 4 Wheatears
Desert Wheatear
The 4 Wheatears from Gujarat
Pink-footed Goose with Barnacle Goose

Wednesday, 3 March 2010

7th February 2010 CEDO.

After the relatively poor returns on the 5th, we managed to get into C.E.D.O. at Nakatrana for a night and hired a guide for some Kachchh specialities.
Before dawn, on the way to Fulay, there were 5 Indian Nightjar and 4 Black-naped Hares on the back roads.
At the Fulay site there were 7 Grey Hypocolius feeding on the berries of the toothbrush trees, a Sirkeer Malkoha and a Bluethroat. 3 Pallid and 2 Montagu's Harriers hunted the nearby fields.
The next stop was 'Bird Rock', a large outcrop of lava sticking out from the Banni grasslands, here there was Red-tailed Wheatear, Dusky Crag Martins and 2 Blue Rock Thrushes. This site also has Eagle Owl, but not today !
We then moved on to the grassland north of Charri Dhand, after a little searching we found 2 Stoliczka's Bushchats and 2 Desert Warblers, plus a fly-over Long-legged Buzzard.
After Lunch at C.E.D.O. we stopped at a roadside spring near Sharanath Temple, where 3 House Buntings and 10 Grey-necked Buntings came in to drink. At the temple itself, there were 2 Brown Rock-chat.
Back in the Banni Grasslands we went to see flock of Sociable Plovers, that the guide had found a few weeks before, close views of 21 birds surrounding the car.
In the early evening went back to Charri Dhand and watched about 50,000 Common Cranes come in to roost. An added bonus was 5 Sykes Nightjars in the Banni Grasslands on the way back.


Sirkeer Malkoha.

Grey Hypocolius.

Grey-necked Bunting.




House Buntings.

Brown Rock-chat.

Blue Rock Thrush.



Red-tailed Wheatear.



Sociable Plovers.



Stoliczka's Bushchat.