Surmising the Conclusion of the Beginning

Irony be thy name, and yay evidence of excursions shall be provided in both quantity and quality. I have neither time or cerebral resources to write much more so here’s some pictures from the past few days…

If Carlsberg made dawn vistas...view from my bedroom window

Me and the above Iceland Gulls had a great time hanging by the sewage outflow, mmm lumpy.

Somr Snipe being Snipe.

Blue-winged Teal being totally ethologically inspiring.

Cheeky Iceland part-taking in rubbish today, not pooh.

Managed to stumble across the Dusky Warbler this afternoon up at Harrys Walls which showed cripplingly well for my eyes but not the camera (light, blah, slight breeze, ISO is enteering puberty and refusing to autoadjust blah)

Not bad place to spend winter..

Gem (male) - nice January record of this scarce continental migrant

Flycatching Starling over Old Town, something usually seen from March onwards

(it's January by the way)

 

Good night Vietnam.

As cold as Ice

Ironically today was rather warm and muggy thanks to a lovely warm front and drop in the pesky NW wind. Just as well as my morning was spent getting active brush-cutting down near Morning Point on the Garrison as part of my voluntary effort with the I.O.S. Wildlife Trust. Maybe I’m a twisted sick freak but I love brush-cutting and other practical conservation work; it’s just brilliant – hard work but so rewarding.

Just another day at the office....

Anyway reward duly arrived when I was removing the cut material and noticed that an adult Iceland Gull was feeding at the sewage outflow below with a load of shifty Larus types. Luckily I had my bins and phone nearby so took some dodgy handheld shots while Jim was telling me how he’d seen it and tried shouting me, but I was far too absorbed in brush-cutting, thinking and listening simultaneously is pretty difficult.

I have an unhealthy obsession with adult ‘white-winged’ gulls and this adult Iceland with its ice cold back and white tips caused eyeball haemorrhaging on site. What a stonker.

An afternoon sauté to Porthloo found  1^st and 2^nd winter Icelands feeding in the surf with 4 Common Gull and more sketchy Larus types.

This 1st winter (overexposed) was chilling, loving life.

Icebergs

Still the post mild wet period Nor’west wind blows harder than a very blowy thing and for all these cold, bleak and generally erroneous conditions we have been rewarded with a white-wing fest! White wings you say? Well white-winged Gulls actually. Iceland Gulls they are (say in Cornish accent), or seagulls as they’re otherwise known. Anyway, tangent, there’s some young birds of the aforementioned species kicking about after being blown in on said NW winds so enough nonsense from me here’s some pics:

Glad to see somethings loving the wind!

Notice there's 2 birds photographed (of 3 present) but the overcast conditions reduced my usual substandard quality to megasubstandard so won't inflict anymore shots on your poor poor eyes.

Other birding, well at this time of year it's more a scenic walk than birding produced 2 Chiffchaff at Old Town while Newford - Watermill held nothing. It was lovely though.

I Begin at the End

The lack of imagination in this posts title perhaps represents the suboptimal state my body (including brain) is in after a fantastic ‘festive’ period. Admittedly not much birding has been done beside garden bashing and some vague twitch related excursions so I shall recap the juicy or should I say glossy bits first.

An initially flighty Glossy Ibis that turned up just after Christmas made the correct choice of staying and performing well down at the Shooter Blind giving all attendees Glossy-itis whatever that is. I suspect I just made that up but hey this blog trends so hard twitter needed a dictionary. Anyway I digress, here’s some crap pics of a stunning little nugget from the south.

In the eternal words of Steve Urwin 'isn't he (or she) a little beauty!'

Besides this brief highlight I haven’t seen much anywhere – Chiffchaffs have notably declined after the usual late passage in November while Black Redstarts are becoming harder to find. The best the garden has mustered up was probably my best view of Long-eared Owl ever when one flew straight at my head then reared up, hanging momentarily about 3ft from my face (to which I muttered ‘oh f#ck’) before drifting on silently. Sick. That means good. Ok. Other recentish shizniz included the Eider still hanging out with its wang out down Hugh Town harbour, presumably due to the muscle beds on the pontoon and subtidal zones.

..I can fly..no I cant!

Besides birds there’s other mega stuff to poke eyes, fingers, lens’s and if your really mental perhaps other things at…like moths. Brief patches of warmer night-time condions have produced low level migrant numbers including some lovely specimens which I generously photographed for your delectation:

Migrant micro - Rusty Dot Pearl

Pearly Underwing - good catch at this time of year.

White-speck - resident or migrant? Probably migrant from Azores/Canaries.

Mottled Umber the epitome of winter moths.

Our first Hebrew Character - ushering spring.

Finally, well pen ultimately actually, the weather has as always been on my mind as my arrival in October coincided with the end of an extremely dry couple of years (especially winters) which thankfully has now ended (for now) allowing the wetlands, ponds, ditches and fields to become inundated once again – a great sight and here's hoping for continuation of said wetness:

Very heavy rain - a welcome sight.

Crippling Carr. If the Waterthrush is still here will we ever see it again!

Of course with Scilly having an Atlantic influenced climate these conditions are what local biota populations (from moulds and lichens to insects and birds) expect and so will hopefully stem some of the declines seen in many groups in many habitats across the islands. However this double edged sword means warmer winters such as this can and will cause declines in species of insect…I wont go into it though. Anyway I guess we’ll see what happens which brings me onto my final paragraph..

SO. 2012. BIG UP as they say. As if 2011 could be beaten?! What a year, possibly my best ever for so many reasons. However experiencing so much only inspires me to further myself in 2012, and I cant wait! As for your fantasticselfs, a BIG thanks for reading my inane babble and I genuinely hope that 2012 will be a success in whatever endeavours you encounter on this crazy journey through time and space.

Dubby Christmas

MERRY

CRIMBO!

AND

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

TO ALL MY FAMILY, FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS.

dub-birder.