Mauritius, 17th-29th March 2022

Overseas travel has been off the cards for several years due to covid (and my own personal circumstances before that). I'd last been abroad birding in spring 2019, now a distant memory. 

Karen and I had booked several holidays only for them to fall victim of covid restrictions. Fair enough, there are much bigger things happening in the world. But finally, on our fifth attempt and with the relaxation of travel bans, it was time to head off. Naturally birds formed a part of my destination planning but, counter intuitively, I’d chosen to go somewhere known for a relative dearth of birds - Mauritius. Why here as a birder? Simple, this was our first proper holiday as a couple and I didn’t want to be overly distracted by birds. I’m not sure if that’s a considerate or selfish act, but Karen had always wanted to go so a win-win in my book. Depressingly, the island has one of the highest extinction rates in the world and has lost around half of its native birds. The remainder cling on, although gladly there are concerted effort and their fortunes are beginning to turn. There is a slightly romantic childhood attachment to Mauritius for birders of my age - as a kid I was aware through early nature programmes of the famous Mauritius Pink Pigeon and Mauritius Kestrel. The Gerald Durrell zoo featured on programmes at the time, and I seem to remember they were instrumental in saving these species. The kestrel in particular went to the brink; in 1974 there were just four individuals left, only one of which was a female. There are something like 400 birds now, an incredible victory for conservationists but still a very vulnerable species. Add-in a few more endemics and there were certainly birds worth seeing in Mauritius (as there always are), but not enough for me to be driven to distraction.

in addition to the landbird endemics, I had hopes of a few Indian Ocean seabirds, in particular tropicbirds (unfinished business for me as I'd only ever seen one as a distant spec off a boat in the 1990s). 

The journey was quote long, flying via Paris, but uneventful aside from a lack of sleep. We arrived early morning local time and were soon in a taxi to the hotel.  From a bird perspective, what was noticeable on arrival is that there are almost no native birds in the countryside, or around the hotel, or anywhere. Common Mynahs, Red-whiskered Bulbuls and Madagascer Fody's are the most abundant birds, but House Sparrows, Common Waxbills, Yellow-fronted Canaries, Zebra Doves and Feral Pigeons abound. To be fair it was a pleasure even to see some of these given the time lapsed since I’d last travelled. The whistling of bulbuls is everywhere and pleasing to the ear. The one exception was the constant presence of Mascarene Swiftlets, the first endemic of the trip and again a pleasure to watch. 

The hotel was luxurious and we wiled away time on the beach, in the sea and around the pool for a few days. We slept a lot too, clearly much needed.

I finally explored the hotel grounds and quickly found a couple of endemics were common enough - Mauritius Turtle Dove and Grey White-eye. There turned out to be a small colony of the localised endemic Mascarene Swallow, and I enjoyed watching them daily. The occasional Striated Heron, or Whimbrel flew past. Offshore the reef meant that any birds at sea were very distant, but I kept trying. each evening impressively large Mauritius Flying Foxes emerged in numbers; the only land mammal we encountered.

Mascarene Swallow

Striated Heron

Mauritius Turtle Dove (endemic)

Mauritius Flying Fox

Madagascar Fody (introduced)

Grey White-eye (endemic)

Quite unexpectedly whist we were in the pool I looked up and there were two White-tailed Tropicbirds circling high up. A target bird but not the views I’d hoped for yet.

We took a dolphin and snorkelling trip. The conditions weren’t ideal for swimming with dolphins but the views and numbers of Spinner and Bottlenose Dolphins from the boat were spectacular. A few Brown Noddies flew past - the first time I’d seen this species in 20 years. Moving closer to the shore and inside the reef, the snorkelling was excellent.

A real highlight was taking a tourist catamaran to the northern isles. On the journey out there were more Brown Noddies, along with a single Lesser Noddy, a few Masked Booby’s and more distant tropicbirds. A flying fish was impressive, as they always are. On arrival at Flat Isle, it was a pleasant surprise to realise we were in the midst of a White-tailed Tropicbird colony. There were hundreds, constantly chasing and dancing around, vocal like terns. Incredible birds to watch. The island was quite heavily vegetated and on landing it was obvious there were multiple nests deep in the bushes. Karen swan whilst I marvelled at these avian fairies. We returned to the boat and headed off to snorkel by Gunner's Quoin; another island - this one with tall with sheer cliffs. More tropicbirds soared the cliffs, this time including the very different Red-tailed Tropicbirds. As we arrived back at the mainland a Green Turtle appeared by the boat to end an excellent day.

Flat Island, home to huge numbers of tropicbirds

White-tailed Tropicbird

Red-tailed Tropicbird

Masked Booby

Given our limited success with dolphins and on local recommendation we tried again - this time successfully being investigated by a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins. It really is very special being this close to wild animals, even for the briefest of moments. I’m glad to say that both of the trips we went on were respectful to the animals and did not harass them at all.

Green Turtle

Back to birds, I of course had the endemics on my mind. In particular the kestrel and pigeon. In the preceding weeks I'd tried to arrange a local guide to help me quickly see the key birds, but by our second to last day I’d got nowhere with the incredibly inefficient Mauritius Wildlife Foundation. Time for an alternative approach, so I spent some time reading trip reports and - for the first time - interrogating the excellent 'e-bird' website and made my own plans, then booked a taxi up to the main site for our last morning in Mauritius. 

The Black River Gorges park is the last remnant of extensive semi-native forest, as well as being a popular walking spot. eBird reports clearly indicated that the Le Pétrin Information Centre was the place to head, and from there the Macchabee Trail. I arrived at 6.45am and headed to the area behind the information centre, where the Pink Pigeon release area is. There were (presumably) released pigeons around - good to see but not exactly what I was interested in. The usual non-native species dominated, with African Masked Weaver new for the trip in this respect, but no immediate endemics. Parakeets flew over which may have been introduced Ring-necked or native Echo parakeets. 

Black River Gorges NP - semi native forest

I set-off along the trail which was initially quiet, but after around 20 minutes came across a small and noisy group of endemic Mauritius Bulbuls, which were smarter than expected. We were up and running. As I watched the bulbuls a flash of a rufous tail could mean only one things - Mascarene Paradise Flycatcher. Now we were talking, I had expected this to be the toughest endemic. Noisy parakeets flying over were clearly not Ring-necked by the call, so I followed them up and found 3 endemic Echo Parakeets in nearby trees. 

Mauritius Bulbul

Mascarene Paradise Flycatcher. Poor photo, great bird.

Echo Parakeet

Heading further down the trail, the dominant birds were still Red-whiskered Bulblus and non-natives, but I increasingly encountered small groups of Grey White Eye's. A few Ring-necked Parakeets appeared. I began to get a little concerned about how I would track down the main targets, at least until I walked around a corner to find a Mauritius Kestrel sat on the trail. An amazing stroke of luck. It quickly flew towards me and landed in the closest tree where I fired off a few shots before it slipped back in to the forest. I was over the moon, but also slightly annoyed that I had reached for the camera rather than by bins. 

Mauritius Kestrel. Once down to a mere four birds, brought back from the brink.

Carrying on a Mauritius Pink Pigeon flashed across the trail in front of me and looped down the slope out of sight. Hardly good views, but enough to have as a wild bird - the release pens had already provided lengthy viewing (and I was underwhelmed by the species anyway!).

Pink Pigeon at the release site. 

Time was slipping away now and it was getting hot. I had three target birds left. The last success was with the most charismatic of the three - a pair of Mauritius Cuckoo-Shrike's put on a good show in a flock of Grey White-eyes. It was time to head back - I'd managed 5 from my 7 targets and was pleased. The missing two were another white-eye and a Fody, so basically birds I was happy to live without.

Mauritius Cuckoo-Shrike (male above, female below)

Time to head home to the UK and hopefully for spring. I definitely need more foreign birding in my life.

Return to Roach Bridge

 16th March 2022

An early morning return to the River Darwen at Roach Bridge, Lancashire. 

The male Belted Kingfisher was on view frequently along its favoured stretch. With almost noone else there it was a real pleasure to settle in and spend some quality time with this most magnificent of American beauty.

I should have achieved some really good photos, but on arrival realised I was missing a part to my adaptor, so only hand held phone shots. Ah well.

Common Kingfishers zapped along the stream and a pair of Mandarin flew through.

Otmoor RSOB, Oxon, 12th March 2022

I had a few hours to kill whilst working in the Oxford area. The weather was glorious so I elected to have a wander around the impressive RSPB reserve of Otmoor. An outstanding reserve packed with birds - where would we be without RSPB?

My first Chiffchaffs of the spring season sang by the carpark. The highlights were the masses of Golden Plover and waterfowl, 2 Common Cranes, Marsh Harrier, Red Kites (everywhere) and a finch flock with Yellowhammers and Bramblings.

Vulture Redemption, 28th February 2022

Last June's Egyptian Vulture dip on Scilly was painful, missing it by minutes. Dipping stings of course, you wouldn't chase rare birds if you weren't driven by the desire to see then, but you move on and accept it as part of the game (or just stop chasing rare birds). However some dips inevitably hurt more than others, and this one had. That familiar pain was resurrected by the bird's brief reappearance in County Donegal in July - whilst I was self-isolating and unable to travel. Unlucky, and at least pin part why this one continued to gnaw at me. It lingered just long enough for the UK-based Euro-lister vanguard to connect the next day, but was quickly gone again. It was clearly going to summer on the Emerald Isle, but there seemed little chance of it being re-found in the vast unwatched Irish countryside, let alone remain settled in once place long-enough to give itself up. Summer ticked along with just one brief August sighting along the remote west coast of County Mayo, so my fears of a vanishing act proved likely to come to pass. 

Autumn came and with it, no doubt, the vulture had slipped southward and out of Ireland and somehow back towards continental Europe and beyond. Most British birders had hoped it would relocate east of the Irish Sea (citing the 1999 Booted Eagle), but nothing. Not even a vague unconfirmed report. It had got away from all but those fast enough to act in July. It was destined to be a blocker of Herculean proportions. This one definitely stung. Maybe because of the near miss on Tresco, or perhaps just because it's such a spectacular bird to see in the UK and Ireland. Both with the added salt that some of my peers had been successful.

Will Wagstaff's photo from Tresco in June 2021. Painful to see, until now.

As is always the way, summer waned, autumn was followed by winter and I enjoyed good birds and birding. Like every other dip, the vulture was slowly consigned to history and I accepted my misfortune. One of the many wonderful things about birding is that there is always something to see, there will always be another rare birds, the seasons will always bring their own unique pleasures and, just maybe, even the one you missed might come again. 

But the vulture story wasn't over. 

To everyone's astonishment, on New Year's Eve 2021 it was seen and photographed by local birder Owen Murphy, soaring over a main road in central Ireland, close to Athlone in County Roscommon. It hadn't left! 

Timing was again bad for me as I tested positive for Covid on that very day. Once again I was stuck. Hopefully it was settled in the area this time - midwinter birds tend not to wander too much. It was searched for over the next few days, but with no joy. Had it moved on again? It had to be there somewhere. Reports were that the area is very hard to search, with undulating ground and extensive tree and hedgerows obscuring views. And given the lack of birders in that area, there was no-one really searching. The lack of sightings didn't mean too much.  

It's choice to overwinter and not attempt to re-orientate became a topic of birder debate. Did this mean it was more likely to be an escapee? Were it's chances of acceptance diminished? The '99 Booted Eagle never made the grade after first being seen in Ireland, after all. It began to feel a little tainted, but I still wanted to see it. Always see it first, then worry about status later. Those who dawdle, dip - and I'd dawdles enough.

Finally, on Saturday 26th February, it reappeared in almost precisely the same spot as in December; seen and photographed by the same (perhaps only) local birder. It had been there all along, hidden in the landscape. It was seen to go to roost in a tree, which was very good news. I couldn't go (again) that evening, but the next morning it was watched feeding on a sheep carcass. It had a known source of food, meaning it was likely to linger in the area. A handful of birders made it on the Sunday and it returned to the same roost tree that evening. Even better news. I had to be there on Monday morning, this was the time. The overnight twitch was on despite getting very little sleep the night before. Why do we do this again? 

Myself, Neill Hunt, Mike Hinchcliffe and Rob Pocklington teamed up at the Avian office at 22.30 on Sunday 27th. We were soon at Holyhead and boarding the ferry at 0.1.15 for the 02.15 sailing. I'd booked a cabin given my fatigued status; the sailing was 'lumpy', but it rocked us to sleep, sort of. I dozed through it, until it was time to disembark at 05.30. we were soon out of Dublin and on the M4 speeding westward. 

By 07.00 we were on site, just as it started to get light. In typical Irish twitch fashion, we were joined by one other car (Mike Edgecombe and Richard Webb from Norfolk) and a single Irish birder. The seven of us quickly located the vulture sat in it's preferred roosting tree - it's not a hard bird to spot. 

A gloomy dawn in County Rosscommon. All seven of us. Had this been in the UK there would have been hundreds present. One of the many reasons to twitch Ireland.

After all that, it was just so simple. EGYPTIAN VULTURE finally OML.

Initial views in the gloom weren't great, but good enough to take the pressure away. It quickly woke, shuffled and stretched before flying off at 07.30, headed towards it's current food source. We also relocated and there it was, sat on the ground near the sheep carcass doing not very much. It stayed for around half an hour and must have decided it wasn't hungry after all, flying off low west and away. We'd lost it, but it didn't matter. An incredible bird to see, even more so after the 2020 Lammergeier; two species of vultures in two years, how time's change.

Egyptian Vulture. Sat in an Irish field. In February. Bizzare! Neill Hunt's photo.

Flight shots taken by Paul Chapman the day before us B-listers could get there.

And three amazing shots taken by Hug Sweeney (@HueySweeney) a few days later...

There was a whole host of available goodies in the area, if time permitted. But as usual I was short on time and needed to return to work, and the others were keen to return too. We committed to get on the 14.45 ferry. Plenty of time for some more birds, but not all of that was on offer. The candidate list selection was impressive - Double-crested Cormorant, Ross's Gull, Northern Harrier, Forster's Tern and American Coot. Which to choose? Mike and Rob had recently - just 2 days previously in fact -  been over and enjoyed all of them (no doubt driving past the vulture), meaning they were relaxed about this. Mike was keen for better views of the harrier, which I'd also like to have seen, but not as much as the Ross's Gull (as I hadn't seen one since 1995). 

It was a short 1hr 15 minutes to central Galway, or at least would have been without the city traffic. Nevertheless we were soon walking out along the causeway to Mutton Island. What an excellent place, full of waders and waterbirds. There were multiple Great Northern Divers just offshore, but search as we did no sign of the mini-Arctic wanderer. At least five Iceland Gulls were present, and with the target bird seen and plenty to look at we were more than happy. I did a work 'Teams' video call whilst the others searched and, just as the call had finished, Rob picked up the 1st winter ROSS'S GULL flying in. Excellent stuff. I'd forgotten how distinctive they are in flight and what a joyous bundle of a bird it was. It remained mostly a little more distant than we'd have liked, but showed well enough in the scope and eventually flew past us quite close. A friendly local warned us of traffic issues in Dublin due to an overturned lorry, so we took his hint and hit the road. There was no time for any other birds, but then what a day, and what a combination. 

1st winter Ross's Gull. Photos by Rich Bonser.

Adult Iceland Gull

1st winter Iceland Gull

By 14.00 we were on board the ferry. I was home by 20.30 with a grip-back beam as broad as my face. Happy days. 

As a footnote, over the next few days the discussion raged on about the vulture's decision to winter. The Booted Eagle's fate in Category D (D for dread) was again raised, but interestingly the conversation became more positive for both birds. The eagle was rejected for a series of reasons, but the vulture's presence in the winter seemed to debunk most of those. What odds that two European species of large raptor had both escaped and wintered in Ireland? Didn't the vulture validate the eagle? A major reason for the eagle's rejection was that it was first seen in March, meaning it had over-wintered or arrived way too early in the migration season. We know the vulture had appeared in the late spring (on Scilly), before heading to Ireland, yet it remained entirely unseen between August and New year's eve. Isn't it more likely the eagle had done the same? Of course it is, and there is already talk of a review of the eagle record. With the vulture there is now the opportunity to look at the state of wing damage, knowing that whatever damage there is happened in the wild, not as a consequence of captivity - another reason for eagle rejection. In short, the vulture's decision to over-winter may well lead to two ticks as the eagle is reviewed. Even happier days.

Egyptian Vulture brings me to 562 on Bubo, but then it seems there will be some reverse movement in the next few months too (crossbills, redpolls and possibly a dodgy wheatear). Regardless of that, today was most definitely a good day. 

And relax.

Scilly meets Northwich, Feb 2022

Three months after moving in to our lively new home and the re-build / decorate phase was in full swing. We needed a plasterer so Karen found one on Facebook and he duly turned up at the house on a Saturday morning. I opened the door to a large, jolly bloke with a strong Cornish accent. Naturally I asked whereabouts he was from, and to my surprise he responded "the Isles of Scilly, if you know where that is". IT quickly transpired that he was Martin Hunt, son of the legendary but long gone Scilly birder David Hunt. Martin's dad was a pioneer of Scilly birding and the rarity scene, before he was tragically killed by a tiger in India. Martin regaled tales of  the 780s and 80s birding scene, he knew people who remain twitcing stalwarts and had even seen some great birds (including the one and only UK Sapsucker in 1975). His dad was also an artist of some repute in his day. Martin was duly awarded the job (how could I not!), and when he came round I was blown away - he brought me three cards that were prints of his dads postcards. A lovely moment.

North Wales 11th February 2022

A last minute day out in sunshine, but freezing cold.

Clocaenog: Excellent views of at least five Goshawks displaying. Crossbills and Siskins. Good views of the annual Great Grey Shrike.

GG Shrike and Hawfich. The views were better, honest.

Llanrhychwyn: a superb male Hawfinch, with both Merlin and Red Kite over whilst waiting.

Colwyn Bay: Fading light. Lots of Common Scoter but no Surf. Long-tailed Ducks, Red-throated Diver, common auks, Red-breasted Merganser.

Gulling, Northants, 2nd February 2022

 I don’t spend enough time looking at gulls, so definitely remain firmly camped with the relative novices. I suspect that’s mainly because there’s nowhere local that a diverse range of gulls is easily accessible. Today I managed a couple of hours near Lilbourne in Northants after a work meeting. A roadside pool, beautifully positioned adjacent to the busy A5 and an enormous construction site.

Despite the surroundings I was pleased to find an adult Caspian Gull, plus a few other candidates and head scratchers.