Rare Bird Alert weekly round-up: 09 - 15 Jan 2013

The week's highlights:
American Buff-bellied Pipit double bill reappears in Berkshire
Galway’s American Coot present for another week…
Tacumshin’s juvenile female Northern Harrier still likes the Wexford way
Drake Black Duck lingers off the Mayo coast
…and a tideline White-tailed Tropicbird has the potential to make the British List….

It was all about the weather really, all the familiar media panic buttons were pressed long and loud as a little condensed blitz of some good old-fashioned traditional winter weather trundled its way, loosely, from west to east as the weekend faded ~ temperatures hovering around or just below zero with snow falling in many areas nationwide.

No great accumulations were to be had though, save for a few inches or so here and there, particularly in East Anglia, but with no real sign of tougher, rougher conditions overseas, there was little in the way of hard-weather movements to engage the birding public.

Indeed, aside from a couple of innarestin’ moments in Royal Berkshire (the reappearance of a couple of pre-Chrimbo favourites and a seven-striped sprite upgrade) things were, as you may expect, given the time of year all a little bird samey.

But when "samey" includes all the birds that are about to be listed below, it just shows how high expectations have become.

Headline birds
On the outer most fringes of London, at Queen Mother Reservoir, the two American Buff-bellied Pipits found last month were back again around the water’s edge from 9th.

Last seen on Boxing Day, this extremely popular duo were on show for much of the week, and behaved themselves for another busy weekend’s viewing - often on show in the puddles at nearby Kingsmead Quarry - with one bird back at the reservoir on the morning of 14th and both birds seen again on 15th.


Everyone seems to have been behaving themselves on site and the sale of day permits so far (to around a 1,000 or more observers) has amassed a tidy sum to swell the coffers of the local county ornithological group, the BOC, by at least a couple of thousand pounds or so.

The willingness of Club members to act as volunteer marshals, overseeing permit sales and parking, is to be applauded and let’s hope that all visitors have appreciated the time given to help them see the birds. This is another top class example of just how a sizeable twitch can benefit all parties…..more of these please…..

There was probably not much call to keep an eye on the crowds over in Galway as the American Coot remained at Murlach, near Ballyconnelly for another few days, still present to 13th at least, while over in the southeast of Ireland, the super young female Northern Harrier was seen again on 13th (the first report in 10 days).

Whizzing back to the west side, and up on Achill Island, the drake Black Duck was again noted on Sruhill Lough on 9th.

Making up the numbers isn’t the normal starting point for a potential first for Britain, but in this instance, there’s little to get excited about (sadly).

Found as a tideline corpse, the White-tailed Tropicbird picked up last week at Mawbury Bank (Cumbria) on January 6th, the specimen was said to be a) intact, b) smelly and c) shedding feathers. Online images certainly confirm c) and given the state of the corpse, b) would appear to be a given. As for a) - it depends on your dictionary definition of intact I guess…..but there’s certainly enough of it there to give our assorted record committees another seabird record to play with.

This beautiful and charismatic species has a broad range, including the “tropical” Atlantic, through to the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean. In terms of Western Palearctic listing, there are three accepted birds to date - the first being an adult at Velho, Boavista, on the Cape Verde Islands in February 1999, with a further 12 years until the next one - the stunning adult on Flores and then on Corvo, on the Azores, for two weeks in October 2011.

What was thought to be the same bird reappeared in March last year, this time on Terceira and last October, an adult (perhaps the same bird again) was seen on Faial. A further six records have occurred in waters (loosely) adjacent to the Cape Verde Islands and the Azores (three in each), the first coming in July 1975, but all were in waters that were outside “Western P” boundaries.

To have one species of Tropicbird on the British List seems pretty amazing (all the British Red-billed Tropicbird records have come since 2001), to have another would be more amazing still