Autumn/ winter 2015

A much overdue blog post with a bit of an update on what i'm up to.
I spent most of the summer working in Norfolk studying the foraging behaviour of Sandwich Terns, with a couple of expedition cruises squeezed in. It was pretty full on, over the course of the whole summer I had about 6 days where I wasn't working. It was great to finally have a constant flow of bird work!
I'm now back in Somerset and working as Assistant Warden at the new WWT reserve at Steart Marshes, with studying the usage of the site by wintering wildfowl and waders as my primary concern. I'm also fitting in a few days of guiding through Avalon Wildlife where I can, and next week i'm off on another cruise, this time to the Caribbean. Mad busy, but i'm absolutely loving it, and plan to carry on like this for as long as I can!

I'm in the process of turning my Avalon Wildife site/blog into a proper website, and so this will be my only blog, covering everything, and hopefully i'll get around to updating it more frequently. For now, heres a few photos from the last few weeks. Most from Steart Marshes. This isn't a great site for photography to be honest, the strength of the site for attracting birds is its sheer size, but this is its weakness for birders and photographers, things are mostly flipping miles away:

Avocet on the River Parrett

Black-tailed Godwits

Buzzard

Dunlin

Wigeon and Hinkley Point in the background

Wigeon with a more appealing background

Cattle Egret

Purple Heron. A nice find, as was the Cattle Egret above.
Having doen most of my recent birding on coastal watchpoints
its nice to get a few waterbirds onto the self found list

Short-eared Owls put on a good show for a few weeks in early November
but have gone quiet recently

Very approachable young Merlin, which is still hanging around

Stunning leucistic Sparrowhawk which graced
the reserve for a month or so

Snipe, 100's of these on site, only really seen when we enter
the marsh and fields for work

Shoveler, this one at Greylake RSPB

Skylark. These love the rough grassland and salt marsh, hoping
to see good numbers nesting next year

Surf Scoter at Blue Anchor, I took a trip over to twitch this last week

Black Redstart at Dunster on the same twitch

Icelandic Odyssey

I spent the beginning of June back on the MV Sea Explorer working as an ornithologist and zodiac driver for Noble Caledonia on an expedition cruise circumnavigating Iceland. This was a truly awesome cruise, with some jaw-dropping wildlife watching, dramatic scenery and wonderful tales of human history. Here's a few photos, I hope to add more and a bit of a report in due time.

Arctic Skua chasing Arctic Tern through icebergs

Arctic Tern

Blue Whale pt 1! Too big to fit in one photo

Blue Whale pt 2

Blue Whale pt 3

White-beaked Dolphin bow-riding a Blue Whale

Eider

Harlequin Duck

The most incredible moment came as we were zodiac cruising around a fjord looking for Humpack Whales. We spotted a feeding frenzy of Arctic Terns so slowly drifted over to take a look and were treated to a Humpback lunge feeding just metres away from our little boats!

A short video of one of the lunges, imagine the shock of having this happen unexpectedly right next to a small zodiac!

King X Northern Eider hybrid

Red-necked Phalarope

Orca

Slavonian Grebe

I'm now in Norfolk doing offshore surveys until the end of July, but will be back in Somerset for the Autumn and Winter, and hopefully getting a bit of guiding going again

Expedition Cruising

I've just returned to Somerset having spent the last 3 weeks working as an ornithologist guide and zodiac driver on 2 expedition cruises around the UK for Noble Caledonia, aboard the MV Sea Explorer

Sea Explorer off Hirta, St Kilda

The first cruise took us from Portsmouth down to Guernsey and Sark, along the channel to Tresco, up to Bantry Bay in Co.Cork, along the Cliffs of Moher and in to Inish Mor, Tory Island and then North to St Kilda and finally Mull before finishing in Oban. After a passenger changeover here we headed to Stornaway, and out again to St Kilda. We were then supposed to go to the Faroes but the tail end of tropical storm Ana would have made this seriously uncomfortable, and even downright dangerous so we berthed in Kirkwall and explored Orkney for 2 days, then returned to plan and visited Mousa, Foula and Fair Isle, ending with North Ronaldsay and Copinsay and ended in Aberdeen. As you would expect from such a list of epic places I had an incredible time and saw a load of great wildlife, here's a little taster:

Moltoni's Warbler on Fair Isle

Puffins

Crossbill on Foula

Eider

Sea Eagle

Twite

White-beaked Dolphins

Arctic Skua

Great Skua

Pomarine Skua

Red-throated Diver

Scottish Primrose

Gannet

Snow Bunting

(St Kilda) Wren

I'll be returning to action with Noble Caledonia in June for a 10 day circumnavigation of Iceland, and hopefully many more expedition cruises in the future.

Indonesia 4: Sumatra

The final leg of the trip was on the island of Sumatra:

I started with Bukit Lawang, a very touristy village on the boundaries of Gunung Leuser NP. The only way into the jungle of the National Park was to go with a guide, so I joined a group for a day of 'jungle trekking'.  Mammals were the stars here, with Thomas's and Silver Leaf Monkeys, White-handed Gibbon and of course Orangutan all giving super views.

White-handed Gibbon

 The experience of watching the Orangutans was tempered somewhat by the knowledge that some were 'semi-wild' having been released into the NP having been made homeless or orphaned elsewhere in Indonesia, but nonetheless it really was a privilege to look into the eyes of such close cousins.

 While having lunch, a male Great Argus Pheasant stepped into a clearing and started picking up scraps left by previous groups. Although I had seen plenty of pictures, I wasn't quite prepared for how incredible this bird was, with its long, wavy tail like some sort of tropical fish, and enormous secondaries covered with eye-spots, crazy. This photo was taken with my phone!

Great Argus Pheasant

Thomas's Leaf Monkey

Before flying out from Padang I spent a few days at Samosir Island and Bukitinggi. Samosir has lost most of its forest, and a small wetland at Amarita provided the best birding, and was pretty much the only freshwater wetland I visited all trip. As soon as I stepped off the road into the paddies, a Watercock flew up, which was a a very unexpected lifer. Pallas's Grasshopper and Oriental Reed Warblers were more predictable and showed well after pishing til I was blue in the face.

Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler

A group of feral dogs roaming the marsh saved me the hassle of getting my feet wet by flushing up Painted and Pintail Snipe and Ruddy-breasted Crake, and White-headed Munia and Baya Weavers were bombing around all over the show.

Painted Snipe

On one day I took the boat from Samosir back to the mainland and a short bus ride down the highway to Taman Eden 100, a nice patch of protected forest. As seems to be standard procedure for rainforest birding, I went ages without seeing a thing, and then suddenly hit a feeding flock containing class birds like Long-tailed Broadbill, Blue Nuthatch, Fire-tufted barbet, Speckled Piculet, Golden Babbler and Black and Crimson Oriole.

At Bukitinggi I had a look around the Rafflesia Flower reserve at Batang Palupuh. Sadly, no flowers were in bloom, but Sumatran Green Pigeon, Blyth's Hawk Eagle, Black and Yellow Broadbill, Blue-winged Leafbird and Black-browed Barbet made the trip worthwhile. Amazingly, after watching the barbet feeding high in a fruiting tree for a few minutes, I turned around and almost stepped on a Sumatran Peacock Pheasant on the path behind me!! I really hadn't expected to come anywhere near this tricky endemic and was almost as surprised as the bird, which quickly hopped into the thick vegetation and disappeared from view.

Sumatran Green Pigeon

Tiger Shrike

Blyth's Hawk Eagle