Michigan day one

I'm sitting here in a motel on the US/Canadian border in NE Michigan thoroughly shattered. It's now Sunday evening but having finished school on Friday afternoon, it was a non-stop evening flight to Toronto and then in the car, a 7 hour overnight drive (which included the predictably anally retentive, jobsworth US border patrol) and then birding non-stop until after dark on Saturday. And then a pre-dawn start with a whole day's birding today to boot. So here's what happened on day one, Saturday 28th May.

After the overnight drive, and a paultry half hour of sleep, the dawn chorus at the junctions of Cloverdale and Broadway Road (near Hastings) started to bubble. American Robins, Common Yellowthroat, Red-winged Blackbirds - all typical mix. But it was for a small near-threatened sparrow that we'd made the journey. With a bit of patience, after tracking down a few birds singing, Henslow's Sparrow revealed itself in the morning half light.

Henslow's Sparrow Cloverdale Grasslands, Michigan 28th May 2016

The fields and surrounding area was pretty birdy too - a singing male Blue-winged Warbler, Scarlet Tanager, Swamp Sparrow and a calling Ring-necked Pheasant the highlights while stuff like Killdeer and Yellow Warbler are always nice to see for the first time in a while. And off northeast we headed.

Tawas Point, on the shores of Lake Huron, is one of those famed migration places - perhaps not in the same league as High Island and Magee, it still has an enviable list of yank warblers moving through each spring. Our visit on 28th May was perhaps a little on the late side, but worth the trip if you just have a read through the following highlights - Magnolia Warbler 4, Blackburnian Warbler 1, Chestnut-sided Warbler 3, Yellow Warbler 20+, American Redstart 20+, Northern Waterthrush 1, Veery 1, Cedar Waxwing 75+, Baltimore Oriole 50+, Orchard Oriole 3, Rose-breasted Grosbeak 1, Eastern Wood Pewee 2, Great Crested Flycatcher 1, Scarlet Tanager 6, Red-eyed Vireo 12+, Field Sparrow 1, Savannah Sparrow 3, Song Sparrow 5 and Eastern Kingbird 100+. These figures just show how decent a place this really is, and with the trees relatively stunted views are generally going to be excellent. And little beats yank passerine migration.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak Tawas Point, Michigan 28th May 2016

American Redstart Tawas Point, Michigan 28th May 2016

Red-eyed Vireo Tawas Point, Michigan 28th May 2016

Cedar Waxwing Tawas Point, Michigan 28th May 2016

Chestnut-sided Warbler Tawas Point, Michigan 28th May 2016

Eastern Kingbird Tawas Point, Michigan 28th May 2016

Yellow Warbler Tawas Point, Michigan 28th May 2016

After Tawas had played on our tired minds, we headed back inland for an evening session at Tuttle Marsh - known for its Black-billed Cuckoos and Trumpeter Swans. Those were our targets anyway, but the extensive open water creates habitat for stuff like Belted Kingfisher, Ospreys and Blue-winged Teal too. To cut things short as I am pretty shattered writing this, the cuckoo played ball while the swan needed to wait. Bizarre how we were unable to locate a couple of big, white birds!

Black-billed Cuckoo Tuttle Marsh, Michigan 28th March 2016

Driving out of Tuttle, a productive stop produced Myrtle, Pine and Nashville Warblers along with Chipping Sparrow and a Red-breasted Nuthatch. The late evening into the night entertainment though was harder to come by at Iosco County airfield - singing (but not seen) Eastern Whip-poor-wills and no American Woodcock either. A handful of Common Nighthawks were a little compensation.

Anyway, Michigan is a pretty nice place with a lot of land that isn't eaten up by urban sprawl. A pleasant and refreshing change! A couple of the non-birding highlights so far have included ticking off The Amish, immaturely driving through a town called Gaylord and photographing the sign as well as a few animals including Racoons, Opossums, Musk Rats, Chipmunks and White-tailed Deer. Tomorrow we'll be heading back into Canada after a morning around Munuscong.

Black-billed Cuckoo North Uist!

The term 'dream bird' is used all too often. But earlier this week, it genuinely did happen. Birders of my generation - born in the 80's and then birding hard from the mid 90's - have had to endure endless tales of Scilly in its prime. Now that I've been going a few years, most of those mega rares have repeated during my time with one massive exception - Black-billed Cuckoo. Add to that the apparent demise of the species on the other side of the Atlantic, just a couple of records on the Azores and an all too brief bird on North Ronaldsay a couple of autumn's ago and you've got a species I really never fancied seeing. Not least in May! But last weekend an incredible record unfolded - a Black-billed Cuckoo at Paible, North Uist.

It was genuinely a real no brainer to go or not to go. Mega rarities, that you've been talking about every single bloody year forlornly, don't grow on trees. And a fit and well Black-billed Cuckoo ticked every single box. And so, with a quick flight up from Yorkshire, look what was still lurking when I (and others) arrived...

Black-billed Cuckoo Paible, North Uist, Outer Hebrides May 2016

It was really perky, actively catching caterpillars and flying about from garden to garden near Loch Sandary in the Hebridean sun. Not exactly how I'd expected to see one - thought a shattered, half dead bird in October was more likely. Black-billed Cuckoo was actually a world tick too, a species that I'd not yet seen in the US. So much so that it was only on the morning that the news broke that I'd been listening to and downloading the call! In fact, the species was one of 16 targets that I'm hoping to see in Michigan next week.

A bit of an update

I didn't quite realise how long it has been since I did an update on here. A lot has happened, both birding wise and at work. One of the busiest periods for both, and so having got back from Italy on that first Bank Holiday weekend in May, one of the first things I did was go on an after school twitch to Otford, Kent where the meena race Rufous Turtle Dove showed well on arrival: -

Rufous Turtle Dove Otford, Kent 3rd May 2016

Back in the day, this species was near-mythical. I remember seeing the Orkney bird on a dark December 2002 day and near enough everyone needed it then. I even saw another orientalis race bird in Oxfordshire a few years back in 2011.

The next weekend promised a lot, with a really decent passage of Pomarine Skuas past Dungeness on the Friday. It was good enough for me to get up well before dawn and venture down there. And I wasn't alone, though we were all without the skua passage with a grand total of zero Poms recorded! I did have a nice Black Tern on The Patch and a walk about the trapping area revealed a Whinchat at the far end of the Long Pits. But other than that, Dungeness was really quiet and so I headed back to London early afternoon. A walk about Rotherhithe that evening was pleasant if not spectacular with a Buzzard over my flat, a Bristol ringed Herring Gull on Greenland Dock and then some nice views of an inquisitive Ring-necked Parakeet: -

Ring-necked Parakeet Russia Dock Woodland, Rotherhithe 7th May 2016

1st-summer Herring Gull (L+R) Rotherhithe 7th May 2016 - ringed as a chick in Bristol on 7th July 2015

The next morning, May 8th, was one of those days where I nearly didn't bother getting out of bet. But hell yeah, I'm glad that I did. And so in glorious blue skies I met up with John A at Crossness and we went for a stomp around. Very quiet indeed to start off, and then all of a sudden while on the hunt for a leftover Wheatear in the paddocks, a small finch flew over with a buzzing 'tr-tr-tr-tr (or something like that!) followed by a couple of jangles - and to boot, being only 100 or so metres away and having heard them last weekend, it was quite obviously a Serin! John A concurred and we both moved back to the river, very happy indeed! A Hobby whipped over and then on the river a Grey Plover was by the outfall and 4 Sanderling were in Barking Bay. Add to that a couple of Lesser Whitethroats and a Little Ringed Plover - all in beautiful weather - it paid to stay local!

And what with all that hot weather, who'd have thought a Dalmatian Pelican would turn up? Well it certainly did, and to boot it lingered in Cornwall (and is still there as I write this).

Dalmatian Pelican Polgigga, Cornwall May 2016

Having been seen previously in Poland, its credentials are fine but being honest it's probably never going to get much further than Category D. With a fine male Woodchat to boot at Marazion, the trip to Cornwall was enjoyable if not a little fraught given how it gave us the runaround more than I'd anticipated. 

Brief trip to Italy

Last weekend Karen and I headed to Italy for three days of predominantly relaxation. Staying on the Amalfi coast, we had a day visiting the ruins at Pompeii (decent, but the five hours Karen orchestrated was a bit excessive!) and then just relaxed the next couple of days along the coast from Sorrento to Amalfi. To sum it up, the birding was tough albeit casual.

Italian Sparrows were nice to see. They were everywhere, and sounded like Spanish Sparrows; and all the males looked like this: -

male Italian Sparrow Pompeii, Italy 30th April 2016

There was little else at Pompeii, bar a couple of Hoopoes, a Blue Rock Thrush and an almost infinite number of Serins. Around the town of Amalfi, there was a good opportunity to have a look at the state of the local Yellow-legged Gulls; a lot of non-breeding birds about as well as a few adults.

Yellow-legged Gulls (adult and 1st-summer) Atrani, Italy 1st May 2016

After heading back along the coast to Praiano late afternoon, we walked back through the town and I managed some good views of a couple of Icterine Warblers and a short while later, a couple of Bee-eaters calling away on the hillside and a Spotted Flycatcher in the wood near the hotel.

Icterine Warbler Praiano, Italy 1st May 2016 - note the long wing projection with eight unevenly spaced primary tips beyond the tertials

On our final morning, there wasn't too much else about. Serins and Sardinian Warblers scratching about, and a brief Western Bonelli's Warbler in one of the pines. And that was that - a very pleasant three days away though if anyone's looking for a good birding spot, I'd probably not recommend the Amalfi coast...