Bluethroat and Autumn Migration Is Underway

It has been a fantastic forty eight hours. A weekend of firsts for me and I'm not really sure which takes pride of place on my excitement podium, they are all equal in my experience and all thanks to knowledgeable friends and doing my homework.

As choosing a favourite from the weekend is impossible a chronological account seems appropriate. So lets begun with the white-spotted bluethroat (Luscinia svecica).

Every few month or so I catch up with some of my ex-colleagues from the BBC's Natural History Unit. We tend to choose a different venue each time with Slimbridge being the chosen venue on Saturday.  Two reasons for this. One friend is a life member and can get a guest in too and there's been a bluethroat resident here for a few weeks. I'm not a twitcher and so had no idea this subspecies was at Slimbridge, but another friend wanted to see this as he'd only ever seen them in Russia, never the UK. That I found amazing as he is possibly one of the best naturalists in the business (though he is too modest to accept this) and his knowledge is immense. It's why he used to present Natural History programmes and is in constant demand for articles. 

The four of us arrived for a 09.30 start. A fifteen minute walk got us to the Shepherds Hut area of Slimbridge where we could see a small group of people peering out from the view point. And there is was, the white spotted bluethroat, 200 metres away. On a twig.

I've got to the stage of my life of not wishing to be weighed down with kit while out and about and so yesterday I carried only my mobile phone and binoculars. The resulting photograph of the bluethroat is as a result, woefully inept. But it is a record. (NB : the arrow wasn't there on the day) 

But believe me it was there clinging onto a stick in what was quite an unpleasant wind, honest guv. Through binoculars and telescopes though it was quite stunning, a male, singing well too. But in many ways I found this quite sad. Reading the notice by the viewpoint it is a bird on its own waiting for a mate and has been at Slimbridge for some time. I checked, the last bluethroat confirmed  breeding in Britain was in 2016. They are regular passage migrants annually but for one to be holding territory in England is uncommon. That said this is the first time all four of us had ever seen one in the UK, and while I wished it could find a mate, as this is the third year it has been to Slimbridge, there's always hope for next year.

If I'm honest, and maybe I should not say this, after I'd watched this speck on a twig for five minutes I thought this is lovely but it's so far away I'm bored now. But there was lots of butterfly action going on along the seawall bank,  I made my excuses and left the core twitchers to stand around in the gale waiting for the bluethroat to re-emerge. For the next twenty minutes I busied myself with watching skippers (presumed small - chief ID friend suggested could be Essex but we'd need a better view to be certain), gatekeeper, marbled white, red admiral, comma, meadow brown and ringlets.

The bluethroat wasn't the only first bird for me. In total we spent eight hours at Slimbridge and along the way saw many species, one of which was a black-winged stilt, which I don't think I've seen before, but could be wrong there. Remarkably this was standing next to not only a ruff in almost summer plumage (it had lost its ruff) but half a dozen green sandpipers. As my encyclopaedia friend said either the green sandpipers and the ruff were non breeding birds, or they've finished breeding early. Either way they're on migration south already which is a sobering thought given it was July 1st and summer is yet to come it seems.

One of the friends isn't too knowledgeable a birdwatcher so it was great listening to my two other friends giving her instruction and tips - I re-learnt a lot myself as I've become rather rusty in recent years through lack of time to get outdoors other than snatched hours at a weekend.

To help her, we also kept a tally of what we'd seen at Slimbridge. Not a place I'd go to regularly as there are too many people visiting but it is fantastic for seeing birds in a well organised way, great for families too. 

Birds we saw at Slimbridge. BLUETHROAT, BLACK-WINGED STILT, ruff, spotted redshank, common redshank, kingfisher, hobby, green sandpiper, common crane, kestrel, great white egret and little egret, shelduck, pochard, teal, coot, moorhen, lesser whitethroat, goldfinch, sedge warbler, reed bunting, stonechat jackdaw, rook and carrion crow, juvenile wagtails, great spotted woodpecker, sand and house martin, swallow (oddly no swifts), house sparrow, starling, woodpigeon, stock dove, curlew, mute swan, greylag and Canada geese, black headed gull, avocet, black tailed godwit, mallard and I'm sure many others I've forgotten. I must carry a notebook!!

A wonderful day and the first time I've done a proper birdwatching day for years. This was followed on the following day, Sunday, with a very different day indeed, on the search for a white admiral butterfly. That's for the next posting.