Archive for February 2016
This post covers the first site we visited in Gujarat, the Desert Coursers camp near the Little Rann of Kutch.
After a final morning at Mt Abu we descended to the plain and continued south-westwards towards Gujarat. We met many cattle-jams on the road ….
…. passed through many traditional Indian villages ….
…. and makeshift camps of migrant workers.
Rubbish tips beside the road were a frequent sight ….
…. although it was quite surprising to find Peacocks foraging amongst the trash.
Among the many birds we saw on route were these Bhraminy Starlings …
…. and under a bridge we found a large colony of Streak-headed Swallows ….
…. although it was a job to get decent flight photos of them over the water.
Even before we had checked into the lodge we were shown this very obliging Pallid (or Bruce’s or Striated) Scops Owl in the grounds. The bird looked down at me at such a strange angle that I had to rotate the photo through 90 degrees for it to appear normal.
Like at Siana, transport was in these open-sided vehicles ….
which was fine in the afternoon sun, but in the early morning was very cold indeed ….
…. and extremely dusty as well.
Even so, I think it would be fair to say that some tour members rather overdid the protective clothing!
Most of the Little Rann of Kutch consists of barren mud flats. During the monsoon season storms force sea water over the area adding to the flooding caused by the heavy rain. As the water evaporates salt deposits build up over the millennia.
Temporary shelters spring up in the dry season as migrant workers harvest the salt deposits.
Salt pans can be seen in many places ….
…. and the product of their labour is piled up on the edge of the flats.
Much of the acacia woodland that surrounds the flats has been cut for firewood.
To cater for the need for firewood the Mexican mesquite bush was introduced a few decades ago and has spread explosively throughout western India. However acacia is still prefered as firewood, so the native wildlife-friendly acacia has been replaced by a wildlife-adverse alien. Shame they didn’t plant acacia saplings instead! Wintering Common Cranes are quite numerous in the area and can be seen feeding along the edge of the flats or in long Vs across the sky.
The Little Rann of Kutch is one of the last strongholds of the Asiatic Wild Ass or Onager.
The Onager is not the ancestor of the domestic donkey, that honour falls to the African Wild Ass of the Danakil area of Ethiopia and Somalia.
Once ranging from Israel to Siberia the range has contracted greatly and now only occurs in Iran, Pakistan and India plus parts of Central Asia.
As darkness fell we stayed to spotlight the restricted range Syke’s Nightjar.
After a morning of bustard searching on the flats we visited a nearby lake and in the surrounding fields found the endearing Indian Courser.
This group of Indian photographers were clearly watching what we were doing as within minutes of us finding the coursers they drove right into the field for closer views.
The lake held good numbers of Lesser Flamingos. The Little Rann of Kutch is the only area outside of Africa where Lesser Flamingos breed.
As well as Lesser Flamingos there were numerous other water birds, ducks, waders, Spoonbills and these Common Cranes.
A few Nilgai were seen along the lakeside ….
…. as well as a number of Onagers.
This stallion was getting hassled by feral dogs ….
…. but he soon gave them the boot (or should that be soon gave them the hoof?)
We were just about to leave the Little Rann of Kutch when we found this Rufous-tailed Lark close to the road.
But one of the top bird on most people’s agenda was the increasingly rare Macqueen’s Bustard which is now a scarce winter visitor from Central Asia. Formerly lumped with Houbara Bustard of North Africa and the eastern Canaries, this bird is the traditional target of Arab falconers and its numbers are dropping rapidly as a result. This bird was seen twice on the Little Rann of Kutch, both times briefly in flight and I missed it on the first occasion. Of course I didn’t get any photos so I have included one I took on the breeding grounds in Kazakhstan in 2005. This species is much smaller than the Great Indian Bustard, but just as hard to see and I only saw it on the final morning just before we headed off to our next stop at Moti Virani further north-east in Gujarat.
Let’s be corny and end with another glorious desert sunset.
This post covers the areas around the town/villages of Siana and Mt Abu in Rajasthan. The thorn scrub and montane woodlands held some excellent species, several of which were life birds for me.
We arrived at our lodge at Siana in the early afternoon of 19th after some birding on route.
The clearing by our chalets was dominated by this huge fig.
…. and nearby trees held some enormous bee’s nests ….
…. and a roosting Indian Scops Owl.
There were plenty of Hanuman Langurs in the area ….
…. including this mother and baby.
It was pretty cold at night so we huddled around an open fire to eat.
Transport in the Siana area was in these open-sided (and open-fronted) jeeps.
The area was composed of rocky hills and dense thorn scrub.
We spent some time around this rock outcrop ….
…. as this was the only place we were likely to see the critically endangered Indian Vulture which nests on the rock. We saw at least four, possibly six of these birds during our time here. See the previous post for an explanation of the catastrophic decline of India’s vulture population.
Between the rocky outcrops we saw a number of Sulphur-bellied Warblers, on the face of it just another hard to identify Phylloscopus warbler ….
…. but in practice quite easy to identify due to its habit of foraging on tree trucks and rock faces rather than among the leaves.
Speaking of rock faces we did a fair bit of scrambling and searching around them in an unsuccessful attempt to locate a roosting Indian Eagle Owl.
We failed to find the owl but we did hear and see one in flight in the same area at dusk.
After we had seen the eagle owl we spent some time spotlighting the escarpment and eventually picked up the eye-shine of a distant Striped Hyena. Through the scope the views weren’t bad and we could see the striped legs and flanks, powerful muzzle and huge ears. I think this was the highlight of the entire trip for me. Of course under those circumstances I couldn’t get a photo so I have included this one from the IUCN Hyena specialist group’s website which was taken using a camera trap near Tehran, Iran by Alireza Mahdavi.
On the top of one high outcrop a Short-toed Eagle peered down at us ….
…whilst from another this Hanuman Langur stared disdainfully at us.
Whether you call it Yellow-throated Sparrow or Chestnut-Shouldered Petronia, I got the best views I’ve ever had of this often elusive bird.
Syke’s Warblers were quite tricky as well. This scarce visitor from Central Asia has turned up in the UK on several occasions including Dorset.
One of the key birds in this area was the beautiful, yet elusive White-bellied Minivet which we saw only once.
Late in the day we quietly hid by this pool in the hope that Painted Sandgrouse would appear. Whilst we were waiting this herd of Wild Boar came down to drink.
Eventually a pair of Painted Sandgrouse appeared but by now it was too dark for photography. This photo from the Internet Bird Collection was taken by Jugal Tiwari in Gujarat. Painted Sandgrouse was the last of the 16 species of sandgrouse in the world for me, another family 100% under-the-belt.
On the 21st we headed from Siana to Mt Abu, a former hill station in the Avalli range which is looking quite down-at-heels these days.
However our hotel, the Connaught House, is a throwback to the days of the Raj, with its paintings of Queen Victoria and photographs of officers and gentlemen in their finery.
This is the dining room ….
…. and here is one of the bedrooms. This place complies with the unwritten law on bird tours that the quality of the accommodation is inversely proportional to the length of stay!
Back in the village we searched the fields, animal enclosures and trees for our target species ….
…. Chestnut Bunting ….
…. Bay-backed Shrike ….
…. another Brown Rock Chat ‘doing what it says on the tin’ ….
…. Blue Rock Thrush ….
…. Indian Robin ….
…. but most importantly a small flock of the very rare and localised Green Avadavat.
We left Mt Abu on the morning of 22nd after scoring with Red Spurfowl and Indian Scimitarbill. From here we headed into Gujarat, a state where both alcohol and meat are banned, not an attractive proposition for a beer-loving carnivore like me.
This post covers our time at Jaisalmer. visiting the Desert National Park (DNP), the Fossil Wood Park and the ancient citadel.
We had three nights at this very attractive hotel. We checked in during the afternoon and had time to spend a couple of hours in DNP before dark.
Much of the DNP is what you would expect, that is desert; either low desert scrub, arid grassland or, in a few places, bare sand dunes.
However there seems to be very little control over the use of the park and a large proportion has been taken over by pastoralists or is used for agriculture. The most famous inhabitant of the park is the Great Indian Bustard, a bird that once occurred over much of peninsular India but is now down to a few hundred individuals, mainly in DNP (plus one site in Gujarat where breeding has not been recorded for decades).
If any Great Indian Bustards attempt to leave the Park they will be in trouble, on one side is the Pakistan border where they are likely to be shot for sport and the other three sides are ringed with up to a thousand wind turbines and associated electric pylons, a death trap for a large, heavy flying bustard.
Another rare inhabitant of DNP is Stoliczka’s Bush-chat which we saw very well.
Naturally we saw many open country birds including flocks of Black-crowned Sparrow-larks ….
…. and the much larger Bimaculated Lark, which is showing its maculations off rather nicely in this pose. By far the commonest lark was Greater Short-toed Lark which occurred in the flocks numbering in the thousands but all remained distant and unapproachable.
Pipits were represented by the more familiar Tawny Pipit and somewhat similar Long-billed Pipit (above).
Isabelline Wheatears were if not common, at least regular. This species differs from the female of our familiar Northern Wheatear by its larger size, more upright stance, larger amount of black in the tail and the wing coverts concolourous with the mantle making the alula appear more obvious. Although I have seen many Isabellines wintering or on passage in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia and breeding in Central Asia I have always dipped when attempting to twitch vagrants in the UK.
Desert Wheatears were commoner than Isabellines and although this shot is not as sharp as I would like, it does show off the ID features quite well, including the all black tail.
Most shrikes were Southern Greys (race laharota) ….
…. but we also saw a number of ‘isabelline’ shrikes. It is claimed that the word isabelline, referring to a pale yellow-brown or creamy-brown colour arises from a vow that Isabella of Castille made in 1491 to not change her clothes until the (eight-month) siege of Grenada was accomplished. Isabelline Shrikes are usually split into two species but the vernacular names are somewhat confusing. I prefer to call the more westerly phoenicuroides Turkestan Shrike and the easterly isabellinus Daurian Shrike (above) and use the name Isabelline just for the combined species. Bizarrely it is the more easterly taxon that occurs as a vagrant to Europe. Phoenicuroides winters mainly in Africa, isabellinus in the Middle East and India
There were quite a few raptors in the park, including this Lagger Falcon ….
…. Long-legged Buzzard (here a pale morph individual) ….
…. the little Shrika, a species of sparrowhawk ….
…. and the huge Cinereous Vulture. Often described as a flying barn door, this impressive bird is often called Black Vulture in the UK but this invites confusion with the well-known and ubiquitous Black Vulture of the New World. Cinereous, meaning ash-grey, isn’t strictly correct, they are more of a dark brownish-grey colour but it is a lot better than the dreadful ‘Monk Vulture’ that was proposed by ‘Dr Shamrock’ a decade or so ago. Cinereous Vultures are one of the biggest of the Old World raptors.
Other birds seen included White-eared Bulbul which is slowly spreading westwards into the Western Palaearctic ….
…. and after much searching and at the 11th hour, a group of Cream-coloured Coursers.
But in spite of much searching it seemed like the only Great Indian Bustard we were going to see was the giant model outside the park HQ. I was in the lucky position of having seen the species well in 1986, a time when they were much commoner, but to the rest of the group this was the raison d’être of the trip. we later found out that a rival tour group had to extend their time at DNP to three days in order to find any, something that would have annoyed me as it would have meant dipping elsewhere.
Mid afternoon we had a lucky break, a local birder had found a group quite some distance from where we we searching. We got there as soon as we could but the heat haze was dreadful and the birds just walked away if we tried to approach any closer. We had acceptable views of nine females, but as you can see no quality photographs.
As a result I have posted this excellent photo from the Internet Bird Collection (taken in Gujarat the only other area to have any remaining Great Indian Bustards) by Arpit Deomurari.
The following morning we visited the neighbouring Fossil Wood Park. The structures in the photo are shelters protecting fossilised tree trunks dating from the Jurassic period, 180-130 mya.
Unfortunately in an attempt to protect them from theft or vandalism the fossil trunks are enclosed in wire cages.
Of course we were here for the birding and as the fossil wood was on rocky slopes we saw a number of species that were absent (or harder to see) in DNP, including Desert Lark – a bird that occurs as multiple subspecies, each one with plumage exactly matching the base colour of its desert habitat.
We had excellent views of ‘red-tailed wheatear’. Like Isabelline Shrike this has been recently split into two species, the westerly xanthopyrmna Kurdish Wheatear and this one, chrysopygia which sometimes retains the combined name of Red-tailed Wheatear, but I prefer the vernacular name of Persian Wheatear as it immediately identifies which is the western and which is the eastern species.
We also had some good views of Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse making good use of what little shade was on offer.
As we returned to Jaisalmer we could see the ancient fort, one of the largest fortifications in the world, rising above the plain.
We had a tour around the ancient town during the hot part of the day near the ‘Bloody Good View’ hotel ….
…. made our way past the shop selling ‘child’ beer (? chilled beer) ….
…. and made our way to the ancient citadel that dominates Jaisalmer.
Built in 1156 but damaged and rebuilt many times during its turbulent history, the fort consists of three massive concentric walls.
This young girl was showing off her acrobatic skills for the tourists.
Then we entered the ancient, narrow, medieval streets of the old town.
There were more cows and dogs in the road than vehicles ….
…. and some cows had learnt that they could go from house to house in the hope of some spare chapatis.
These ancient merchants houses or havelis have incredible stone carved facades, this one took 50 years to complete ….
Jaisalmer grew rich on the taxes imposed on passing caravans during the spice trade and this shows in the wonderful buildings …..
I took loads of photos of these architectural wonders but can only room to show a few here.
Say no more!
So I’ll end this post on the Desert National Park with a desert sunset.
India is famous for its raptors, but in recent years many species have undergone a serious decline, none more so than the resident species of vulture. This alarming loss of natures garbage disposal has meant that dead animals (roadkill etc) now lie beside the road to rot where they would have been consumed within hours in the past.
The cause of this dreadful decline which has reached 99.9% in most areas is due to the veterinary use of the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac (known as Voltorol when used in humans). The drug given prophylactically to cattle will cause renal failure in most vulture species that feed on the carcass. The four large resident species, White-rumped, Slender-billed, Indian and Red-headed are threatened with imminent extinction. Only the smaller Egyptian Vulture seems to be surviving.
In 1986 vultures (mainly White-rumped) were everywhere. Although the two trips are not directly comparable, the former trip was mainly in the east of Rajasthan and also visited the Himalayan foothills, but both involved visits to the Jaisalmer area.
Sorry this table is not aligned properly – it was pre-posting!
1986 2016
Black Kite 2500 160
Red-headed Vulture 54 0
Cinereous (Black) Vulture 7 4
Eurasian Griffon Vulture 67 20
Slender-billed/Indian Vulture 36 4
White-rumped Vulture 5000 1
Egyptian Vulture 2500 160
Slender-billed and Indian Vultures were not split in 1986 hence the two species could not be separated for this table. All the ones seen on this tour were Indian Vultures. The species that showed the least decline were Cinereous and Griffon Vultures which are winter visitors (and as such have not been exposed to diclofenac to the same extent). Most of the 160 Egyptian Vultures were at the one site shown below..
Early morning mists had not cleared as we arrived at the tip outside of Bikaner. As cattle are not for human consumption in most of India any carcasses are left in certain areas for scavengers to dispose of.
Although there were no fresh carcasses the area was full of Egyptian Vultures and feral dogs.
We found this litter of puppies in a shallow depression, proof that the dogs were living wild.
Surrounding trees were covered with Steppe Eagles and Egyptian Vultures.
Immature Egyptian Vulture.
Adult Egyptian Vulture
Immature Steppe Eagle – a winter visitor from Central Asia
Also in the area where small numbers of Eurasian Griffon Vultures, another winter visitor to the area, but our only White-rumped Vulture of the entire trip was one seen briefly in flight. What a change compared to my visit 30 years ago.
Although not affected by the poisoning effect of veterinary drugs, Black Kites have also shown a marked decline compared to my last visit.
This Black Drongo chose a rather unattractive perch to pose for a portrait.
Variable Wheatears come in three forms, all from different areas to the north and west; the almost all-black opistholeuca, the white-capped capistrata and the common and widespread picata (above).
The huge Nilgai (aka the Blue Bull) is the Indian equivalent of the African Eland
A mammal I really wanted to see was the elegant Blackbuck, but all the areas where they have been seen before on this itinerary have been irrigated and turned over to agriculture.
We did see the delicate Chinkara though.
Later we made our way to the little village of Khichan. On the surface it looked like any other small Indian village but it held a wonderful secret.
The Brown Rock Chat is a bird that ‘does what it says on the tin’ – its brown, it’s a chat and it perches on rocks. Nice though it is, it wasn’t the reason why we had come all this way.
Just around the corner there were a coupe of lakes absolutely packed with Demoiselle Cranes.
A rough count between those on the two lakes and those in the air came to about 8000.
As with all large gatherings of cranes their bugling calls filled the air.
I have seen spectacular large gatherings of Common, White-naped, Hooded, Red-crowned and Sandhill Cranes but these must be the most beautiful cranes of all.
The birds seemed largely undisturbed by the passing villagers.
The smallest of the 15 species of crane, Demoiselles breed in Central Asia and migrate over the Himalayas to winter in India. Small numbers turn up elsewhere and I have seen single birds in far-eastern Russia and Japan plus good numbers on their breeding grounds in Kazakhstan
The villagers of Khichan have had a long love affair with this beautiful bird. Each winter grain is put out for the birds in an enclosure within the village. This tradition persists even though Khichan is no longer as prosperous as it once was (due to end of trans-desert camel trains) and is now supported by donations from clansmen from abroad.
We didn’t see the birds in the enclosure as we were too early for ‘feeding time’ and it seemed pointless hanging round for ages when we had such wonderful views around the lakes.
Here are a few other birds we saw around the lakes – Indian Pond Heron
A wintering Green Sandpiper from Siberia
Another wintering bird, this time from Central Asia – the personata race of White Wagtail aka ‘Masked Wagtail’
Yellow Wagtails can be difficult to assign to race when not in breeding plumage but this is probably of the race thunbergi from the boreal zone of northern Europe or Siberia
Little Grebes are a resident species ….
…. as is the ubiquitous Red-wattled Lapwing.
As we left a flock of Rock Doves flew over, but high above them were more Demoiselle Cranes flying in for the afternoon feast.
With many miles to go to our next stop, we could only marvel at this wonderful sight as we headed south to the town of Jaisalmer. Definitely one of the highlights of the entire trip.
This January I spent nearly three weeks in north-western India. This was my third visit to India and my fifth to the subcontinent (I have also visited Bhutan and Sri Lanka). My first trip was in 1986 when I joined a group of 17 for an event-filled tour of northern India with a visit to the Desert National Park in the west. My second visit in 2001 was to the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya in the north-east.
This trip was mainly to the north-west and the states of Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat with a short visit to the state of Maharashtra in the centre. This post covers our time in Punjab and our visits to Amritsar and the wetlands of Harike. But first we have a morning in Delhi before our flight to the north-west
To the western visitor India is full of contradictions: modern roads full of fast traffic that have to dodge bulls that wander unrestrained even in city centres, people stopping to feed monkeys on the way to work and the very poor and very rich living in close proximity.
During our short time in Delhi we visited the Delhi Ridge park in the hope of seeing the rare Brook’s Leaf Warbler. The best we can say about the warbler was that we probably saw it, but most of us got better views later at Harike. India is a mixture of the familiar and unfamiliar. Here Rock and Collared Doves join Rose-ringed Parakeets, a scene that could be replicated in, for example London, but here the parakeets and the Rock Doves and are wild rather than feral.
Less familiar was the abundant and quite tame Five-striped Palm Squirrel.
Soon after landing at Amritsar we headed off to see the wonderful Golden Temple, the Holy Shrine of the Sikh religion. Cultural aspects are in short supply on most Birdquest trips but with little quality birding close to the city we had several hours to fully appreciate this wonderful site.
Here our tour leader Frank Lambert, with whom I travelled to Tibet in 2005, stands in front of the Sri Harmandir Sahib (the Abode of God) usually known as the Golden Temple of Amritsar. As you can see we had to go bare footed, which became quite chilly as the afternoon drew on.
Rob and Heidi display an interesting choice in head-gear – all visitors must have their heads covered inside the temple precinct.
No birder likes a dip, even if it’s a holy dip just for the ladies.
Up to 100,000 people visit the temple precinct daily to worship. We visited on the day of a holy festival, but fortunately the majority of pilgrims had left before we arrived, but the sky was full of paper kites flown to mark the occasion.
At the centre of the ‘holy tank’ is the Sri Harmandir Sahib itself, the location of the Adi Granth, the holy scripture of Sikhism. The tank was excavated from 1570 and the temple was completed in 1604 but had to be rebuilt in the 1760’s following attacks by the Afghans. The gold leaf was added in the early 19th century. More recently, in 1984, the temple came under attack from the Indian Army in an attempt to defeat Sikh nationalism, an outcome of this action was the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi by Sikh bodyguards..
Pilgrims line up to see the Holy Book of the Sikhs, the Adi Granth inside the Sri Harmandir Sahib. Photography is not allowed inside so this photo and the next (ATP Photography) were taken from the Internet.
Within the Sri Harmandir Sahib the pilgrims sit to hear the words of the Adi Granth read out aloud.
Incredibly the 100,000 pilgrims and tourists that visit daily all qualify for a free meal ….
…. these kitchens serve what must be the biggest fast food joint in the world.
We spent the entire of the next day and the early part of the one after at Harike, an extensive wetland formed by the damming of one of the regions rivers. Whilst the dam has allowed this former arid region to flourish through irrigation and has created wildlife habitat it has also produced fog. This thick mist hardly cleared all day and it was midday before we could see 100m ahead of us. This was our least successful day of the trip with only three of the eight specialities of the area seen (although we were able to catch up with one later and only one of the missed birds was a lifer for me). Even so I saw one life bird, Rufous-vented Prinia – which is now a babbler not a prinia, but bird photography was out of the question given the conditions.
Indeed the only species I photographed was this Rhesus Macaque. With the trees all numbered it looks like she’s waiting outside of her front door
On day three, after some further dipping at Harike we headed south towards Rajasthan. As always on Indian roads there were multiple hazards, such as these loads so wide that they take up the entire road and prevent their driver having any idea of what is behind him. Indian traffic operates with completely different rules than anywhere else, driving the wrong way up a dual carriageway, overtaking a vehicle that is already overtaking another, expecting oncoming vehicles to get out of your way in spite of the fact that you are on their side of the road and the continual use of the horn seem perfectly acceptable.
On route we came across a flock of Red-naped Ibis, a bird I missed in 1986 due to a poorly timed ‘bush stop’. I was delighted to catch up with this bird after 30 years of waiting.
Other birds seen on route included the ubiquitous House Crow, a bird that has spread around the world by hitching a ride on ships and has even established a breeding colony in Holland ….
…. and the elegant Southern Grey Shrike. The grey shrikes or ‘jackie hangman’ as my wife calls them, are in taxonomic limbo, different authorities recognise one, two or three species, but a recent paper proposed seven or more species based on genetics. If this was accepted this would be Indian Grey Shrike Lanius lahtora
In the evening we arrived in Bikiner in Rajasthan, more about that in the next post.
Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I haven’t posted anything about 2016 yet – mainly because I’ve spent three weeks in India.
I’ve just about edited all the Indian photos and will start uploading some of them soon. But first I thought I do a short post about other things that have been going on in 2016.
The weather in the UK has been a major factor, constant wind and rain, particularly early in the year, has prevented ringing and hasn’t made birding very pleasant.
We tried to organise a bird race for the first weekend in January and quite a few teams were going to take part but the weather was dreadful. We were finally able to run it on 10th January but by then only two teams took part. It was good fun but my team came a rather poor second. Even so I find the annual race to be an interesting and worthwhile challenge and I like to start the year off by searching out some of the scarcer (but not necessarily rare) birds like Marsh Tit or Barn Owl that otherwise tend to get forgotten about. We started before dawn for owls in east Dorset, headed to Weymouth for first light, visited Portland, the areas around Maiden Castle and Hardy’s Cottage before returning to Poole Harbour for the rest of the day. 113 wasn’t a great total, in 2015 we managed 126 but then its only a bit of fun.
One of the many quality birds we saw on the bird race day was Black Redstart. However I didn’t stop for photographs – this one was photographed in Turkey last autumn.
On my return from India I was delighted to find that I had been offered free tickets to an Afro Celt Sound System gig at the BIC. This wonderful band (not to be confused with any other bands with a similar name) fuses traditional African and Scottish rhythms and has a unique and very infectious sound. Margaret was unable to go so I took granddaughter Amber along instead and she had a wonderful time.
There are no other bands where you can hear a duet between an oud and bagpipes or for that matter where they have four different drummers. Can’t wait for their next album, due out I believe in April. Regrettably I didn’t take my camera and these photos were taken from their website http://www.afroceltsoundsystem.org.uk/
Drummer Johnny Kalsi
Bagpipe player Griogair
Traditional African instrument player Nfaly Kouyate
Recently I gave my talk on bird evolution and how birds spread around the world to Poole RSPB group. The talk was entitled ‘what came first the Archaeopteryx or the egg’. There are several different ideas of what the Archaeopteryx, the 150 million year old proto-bird looked like. I took this reconstruction from the internet. I have done this talk four or five times now and I think its time I came up with another subject.
Whenever conditions have allowed I have tried to continue our ringing program. During the winter I have ringed at Holton Lee where we have continued to monitor common woodland birds, and at Fleet’s Corner where the primary target is wintering Chiffchaffs. We have proved that some Chiffchaffs return to the site each year to winter and that wintering birds are a different population from breeding birds. We have caught two or three Chiffchaffs on most ringing attempts this winter but on 10th February we caught 18! Six were re-traps first ringed in November or December, one had been ringed in Southampton in early November and the rest were new. Five days later I returned, and we caught none, although two or three birds were in the area, the following day I returned just to check and found just one. In spite the fact that this is only mid February it would appear that Chiffchaffs are already on the move. It is possible that a full month before migrant Chiffchaffs wintering in the the Mediterranean and North Africa start arriving in the UK, the Chiffchaffs that winter here are already moving towards their (unknown) breeding areas.
This bird, a potential Siberian Chiffchaff, was ringed on 12/12/15 and re-trapped on 10/2/16.
Unusual birds have been thin on the ground in Dorset this winter. A Great Grey Shrike has been wintering in Wareham Forest, I have only seen it once in three visits and that was the time I forgot my camera, but I did manage a poor digiscoped image using my pocket camera.
Our young birding friend Christine (who also goes to the choir with Margaret) has recently decided to up her birding game by doing a year list. Without her own transport she isn’t going to do well, so we have offered to help her out. Visits recently to Wareham Forest, Studland, Portland, Weymouth, Abbotsbury and a few locations around Poole have added a good number of species to her list.
We recently went to a talk for the Christchurch birding group CHOG by top Israeli birder Yoav Perlman who is currently studying for a PhD at UEA. I met Yoav in Israel in 2013 where he took Margaret and I to see the critically endangered ‘tamarisk’ race of Nubian Nightjar and have met up with him since at the Bird Fair. Yoav gave an excellent talk which brought back fond memories of my three bird-filled visits to Israel.
Not having any photographs of Yoav from our Israel trip, I looked on his website http://nubijar.blogspot.co.uk/ and found this memorable photo taken on Shetland which I have reproduced below. I know or have met all five in the photo; on the left is Peter Colston, former curator of the bird collection of the British Museum who I met on a trip to French Polynesia in 1997, in the centre is Yoav, to his right is my friend and bird identification expert Paul Harvey who I have known since 1978 and on the far right is Roger Riddington, editor of British Birds magazine who I met in Shetland and at the Bird Fair. But the reason I wanted to post this photo is because of the guy to the left of Yoav, Martin Garner. Martin died recently after a long battle with cancer and the birding community has joined together to mourn his passing. Martin loved to be at the cutting edge of bird identification and many conundrums were explored in his excellent website Birding Frontiers http://birdingfrontiers.com/ and the two ‘Challenge Series’ books. Martin was a kind, generous and inspirational man, with deeply held religious beliefs and faced death with a serenity that was quite awesome. I only met Martin a few times, at a talk in Poole and at the Bird Fair but wish I could have known him better.
gryllosblog 
