Osprey and Willow Tit

An interesting day today as the weather finally started to improve and the temperature rose to 25°C this afternoon. I spent the morning around Stannage Edge looking out for the Bearded Vulture. Although there were reports from Chatsworth and Grindleford yesterday I'm not convinced that it's still in the area.

This afternoon a visit to Clough Wood produced the expected Marbled White butterflies and an unexpected Willow Tit, one of two which Simon had seen earlier in the day. I was heading for Rowsley to look for Hobby which have proved very elusive since the spate of records in May and early June. I was unsuccessful but was more than compensated by distant views of an adult Osprey over Haddon Hall. There have been several sightings of Osprey by fishermen in the Rowsley area recently so this could be the same bird.

Marbled White

Willow Tit

Osprey

Locally both Osprey and Willow Tit are very scarce but I see fewer Willow Tits than Osprey each year .

Little Grebe nesting success at Chatsworth

I've seen one, and sometimes two Little Grebes regularly at Chatsworth and suspected they might be breeding although it felt like it was getting a little late in the season. Today I struck lucky though and managed a photo of an adult with two tiny youngsters.
Locally the Little Grebe is a very scarce breeding bird, the only other pair I've come across in the summer is at Conksbury Bridge but there are usually a few more around on the rivers during the winter months.

Little Grebe with chicks

White Wagtail déjà vu on Beeley Moor

Having seen a completely unexpected White Wagtail on Beeley Moor at this time last year I have a habit of closely scrutinising all the wagtails I get a decent view of. I was still very surprised to come across another pale backed 'alba' wagtail and even more so to see it in the same place as last year on the edge of Beeley Moor. In fact, I think it is too much of a coincidence and am inclined to the view that it is the same bird, a year older.

White Wagtail - adult male

Last year I decided that the bird was in it's first summer as both juvenile, post juvenile and pre-breeding greater coverts could be identified in the wing. This bird looks like an adult with just two ages of feather in the median and greater coverts which is typical of an adult bird. As last year, this bird looks like a male with a sharp division between the black of the nape and the grey of the mantle. 

It appeared to be with a female Pied Wagtail and both birds were collecting and flying off with food so obviously feeding young nearby. Last year the female was also rather pale backed but this year the female looks to be a typical Pied.

Pied Wagtail - adult female

I'm calling the bird a White Wagtail but it's impossible to be certain, it could be a hybrid but must surely have some White Wagtail in it.

Another interesting feature when comparing these two birds was that the Pied shows black sides to the upper breast in the shoulder area giving a continuous black breast band whereas the White had white sides to the breast, with some black spotting so the breast band is more isolated appearing as a bib rather than a continuous band.

Pied Wagtail female v White Wagtail male

Summer gulls

Every year the cutting of the hay meadows for silage attracts hundreds of gulls, mainly Lesser Black-backed Gulls, to the fields between Winster and Newhaven. 
The gulls seem to be particularly attracted to the field after the grass has been cut and just removed, presumably revealing lots of insects that have been left behind, so they move around the fields quite a bit as they are cut. 
There are a lot of fields, many of which are not close to roads,  and when they are near the roads they can be busy so you need to find the fields that are reasonable accessible at the right time.
Today I counted over 350 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, predominantly of the British race graellsii but also a few of the darker backed race intermedius which breeds in northern Denmark, southern and central Norway.
Many of these birds will be heading to the Iberian peninsula or Morocco for the winter.
I also counted 9 of the paler backed Yellow-legged Gulls which have spread in to southern Britain from the French and Portuguese Atlantic coasts and the Mediterranean over the past couple of decades and are now regular on Midland lakes and reservoirs in the late summer and autumn.

Lesser Black-backed Gull - graellsii adult

Lesser Black-backed Gull - graellsii 1st summer 

Lesser Black-backed Gulles - graellsii foreground with intermedius behind

Lesser Black-backed Gull - intermedius adult

Yellow-legged Gull - 3rd summer

Yellow-legged Gull - 2nd summer

Juveniles - the class of 2020

Lots of juveniles around at the moment, here are four of my favourites; Stonechat, Common Redstart, Wheatear and Long-tailed Tit. All seen around Beeley Moor.

A wild vulture chase in the Peak District

Very occasionally in the birding world there is a record that takes everyone by surprise. Such was the case when the news broke of a Bearded Vulture photographed above Balsall Common in the West Midlands on 26th June. Later the same day it was seen in Derbyshire airspace, seen by one lucky observer as it crossed the A50 near Foston. 
There were no more sightings until the 30th June when it was reported over Minninglow and then Hassop in the early afternoon then later that evening between Edale and Castleton and possibly also in the Goyt Valley. 
Local birdwatchers, including me, spent the next few days looking skywards but there were no further reports until it was filmed over Peter's Stone in Cressbrook Dale and then later over Frogatt Edge when it was heading north towards Stannage Edge. 
I spent the following day, which was heavily overcast with persistent drizzle, in the Stannage area but without success but it was then reported twice over Big Moor and then over Gardom's Edge east of Baslow. 

It was very difficult to know where to look as the bird wandered around the area but this changed on 10th July when it was seen just east of Derwent Reservoir in South Yorkshire and over Abbey Valley where it was seen going to roost on a small cliff at Howden Edge.

The unprecedented sight of a Bearded Vulture against the hillside on the Yorks/ Derbys border

Bearded Vulture ready to leave its roost at 05:40 this morning

On each of the subsequent days up to today it has roosted on this same cliff and I finally caught up with it today.
The bird is a youngster in its second calendar year so looks rather drab compared with the adult bird. It is thought to be the off-spring of birds that have been reintroduced in to either the French Alps or the Pyrenees.

Bearded Vulture

Birdwatchers on the hillside

This particular bird which can be identified by its markings and feather damage (it also lost some tail feathers along the way) was first reported this spring on Alderney in the Channel Islands on 20 -21 May before flying north to Borger in the Netherlands near the border with Germany on 30th May.  It was then reported from Nijmegen and Utrecht in the Netherlands on 11th and 13th June respectively before heading in to Belgium where it was seen around Bruges on 18th June and the Ghent area on the 19th and 20th.
The first British record of the Bearded Vulture was in May 2016 and this is now the second record. In 2016 the bird, also a second calendar years was seen in Belgium before turning up in Kent and touring around the SW. 
The British Ornithologists' Union Records Committee (BOURC) announced that this first record of the  Bearded Vulture has been placed in Category E of the British list. This category lists introductions, human-assisted transportees or escapees from captivity, as well as species whose breeding populations (if any) are not considered self-sustaining, and species included in it do not form part of the British list (unless they are also included in Categories A, B or C). It was around the question of self sustaining breeding populations that resulted in the first record be placed in Category E. Whilst there are still birds being released in both France and the Pyrenees birds have been breeding successfully in the wild for more than two decades, which I know from personal experience as I have watched birds in the Aravis mountains over this time period so it will be interesting to see if they treat this second record any differently.
The Bearded Vulture can live up to 20 years in the wild so who knows, the bird up at Howden Moor could be around for some time to come. I'm still hoping to see it over Harland Edge!
Whatever its origins it's certainly a spectacular bird to be able to see in the Peak District!

I walked along the Kings Road parking at the start on Mortimer Road near Strines which is about 5km of gentle up hill with about 1km of rough ground and stream crossings to get to the viewing point at GPS 53.431 -1.700.

Oystercatcher and Mandarin at Chatsworth

A shame that the nesting attempt by the Oystercatchers was unsuccessful this year, I think that the nest was unintentionally disturbed during the tidying up of the river bank prior to the gardens opening up again. Both birds are still present and the scene looks almost coastal with them stood on the rocks below the weir.
I counted 35 Mandarin duck between the single arch bridge and the house which included several family parties. Many of the young are fully feathered and independent of their parents but some are still small and downy and are perhaps second broods. 
A few Redstart along the river bank and still a pair of Spotted Flycatcher but it felt almost autumnal in the cooler wet weather.

Oystercatcher

Mandarin - female with ducklings

Barn Owl - Beeley Moor

Watched a Barn Owl hunting on the edge of the moor last night just before the rain started. 
With the recent spell of mild winters the local Barn Owls appear to be doing OK at the moment and there was plenty of food available for this bird.

Barn Owl