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| Treecreeper |
After failing to find the smew and Coues's Arctic redpoll at Whitlingham Broad yesterday, my bird watching friend, David kindly asked me if I would like to tag along with him to try again. I gladly accepted the invitation and so this afternoon, I was back at Whitlingham for a second crack in finding these two birds. David took me to a different section of the site compared to yesterday, down a path near the smaller broad, a section that I've never been before. Alder trees lined along this path and it wasn't long until we were spotting birds, such as treecreepers. Suddenly, a flock of birds flying into these trees caught our attention. These were definitely redpolls with a few siskins mixed in for good measure.
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| Common (Mealy) Redpoll |
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| Lesser Redpoll |
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| Siskin |
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| Coues's Arctic Redpoll |
Shortly after we found the flock, someone with a scope came to join us and with his help we were able to find a pale looking redpoll that certainly seemed promising enough to be the Arctic redpoll that we've been after. Eventually, it came out from the undergrowth for me to get a few photos of it. A crowd of people was now starting to form around us just as the bird disappeared back into the scrub. One of them confirmed to me that the bird in these photos was indeed the Coues's Arctic redpoll. There were at least five to ten other redpolls in this flock, mostly lesser with a few mealy. Coues's is apparently a subspecies of Arctic redpoll and it is a first for me, subspecies or not. Certainly a bird special and beautiful enough to fulfil as my early birthday present.
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| Female Smew (with Tufted Duck on the left) |
Annoyingly, a mini bus drove past and it spooked the birds off and we lost sight of them. It was then that David and I decided to leave and travel to Thorpe Marshes on the other side of the river for that female smew. Could we be lucky with this second target species, too? You bet! It was a bit distant, swimming and diving along the far edge of the broad, but we managed to find it ok. This red-headed female with the white cheek patches was only slightly bigger than the six little grebes that were also around, but it was still a delight to watch. We also saw a drake pintail, three wigeon, a few great crested grebes, teal, gadwall, pochard, coot and plenty of tufted ducks. I can safely say that I have totally made up for the failed attempt yesterday. Now can Norwich City beat Nottingham Forest tonight? That would truly be the icing to my early birthday cake!
Hi Sean, I'm glad you managed to catch up with the Arctic Redpoll and Smew. You've managed to photograph all three redpoll species here - in addition to the Coues's Arctic Redpoll the ones with the brownish head are Lesser Redpoll and in the first lot of photos you can see a bird with more streaks on the flanks and between the tail and back which is a Common (Mealy) redpoll.
ReplyDeleteA long way off, but at the end of the year I'll be writing an article on them for my Whitlingham bird report as its the first Arctic Redpoll for the site - would it be OK if I included some of your photos please? I'd credit them to you (and could put in a link to your blog if you wanted too).
Thanks,
James
It would be my pleasure. Thank you so much for telling me that I've got all 3 species photographed.
DeleteThat's great, thanks very much.
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