Essex Birding (1 Viewer)

[The sniper]

I have been thinking about this for a while.
I believe we (essex) have bird reserves to rival anything in the country but we still fall short of other counties in terms of rarities although the last few weeks with the desert wheatear,olive backed pipit,bazillions crake etc show we don't seem to have done too bad of late but it does seem that we tend to lack rarities all round.Is thi simply because of our geographical situation,with the coast jutting back in land or maybe that there are birds out there but they aren'tw being found.
We have some cracking reserves but many are quite vast like Old Hall and birds could easily be missed,also whenever I seem to bird Essex and even the bigger sites like Rainham,Abberton,Old hall there seems to be a distinct lack of birders,I know from when I go upto Norfolk that I bump into more people from Essex than anywhere else,is it a case of some birders not realising how good the birding is in essex,perhaps if those people(myself included) spent more time in autumn for example then a few more rarities may turn up,not saying we are going to pull bluetails,little buntings etc out the bag all the time but I sometimes think there must be more out there than we seem to find.
When it comes to some of the main reserves the actual centres are up there with the best in the UK

 

[dwatsonbirder]

I asked the same question about this time last year, the general consensus is that Essex is further west than both Suffolk & Kent, and resultantly these two counties "catch" most of the birds that would otherwise end up in Essex. If you look at historical records of rare & scarce species in Essex, the vast majority are from the extreme north & south of the county (i.e. Thames basin & Walton area) with other records coming from Dengie & Foulness peninsulars. I believe that observer coverage is much lower in Essex than in other surronding counties, and as a result the chances of finding your own birds are increased. The key is just to be in areas that look decent with manageable amounts of habitat in the right conditions, or just to be out at all! As an example I was in Essex from Spetember through to June last year, and in that time I found Richard's Pipit, YBW, Golden oriole, Firecrest, Slavonian grebe and an inland(ish) Great skua. A decade in Norfolk and I have (comparitively) less. Let's hope that Essex birders get out and find the birds, we all know that the vast majority are unrecorded & as a result we need to get out & find them!
Happy birding!

 

[Brian2]

I tend to agree and I'm as guilty as anybody. I tend to jump in the car and head for Kent, Suffolk and Norfolk at the drop of a hat but I have put a few shifts in locally too. I've spent many an hour at Rainham and Abberton my favourite Essex reserves both of which get some great birds and are indeed really good reserves.
Perhaps next year I'll try to work the local patch a bit more.

 

[GYBirder23]

I keep well away from the busy reserves ad prefer under watched sites

 

[Steve Arlow]

Yes I would say geographical location is a major factor where Essex falls short of Suffolkk and Kent.

North Essex is on par with Landguard in terms of location (not birds as still gets far less rares), its not far across the water, but there is a huge amount of habitat there. Birders in the NE have concentrated efforts at Holland Haven Country Park and have done well in recent years.

In the south I think a lot of birds get funnelled along the Thames corridor, in autumn, and end up at observer heavy Rainham Marshes where they always seem to have more rares than the rest of the county put together.

There have been some belting rares over the years in Essex but the overall ratio of rare birds per actively looking birders is pretty low.

In the south Bowers Marshes, once ready, should pull in a lot of waders and wetland birds, as will Wallasea once also completed and settled. Gunners Park in the south was once the prime site, would still be, was it not for the habitat destruction and overloaded with dog walkers.

In 25years of birding locally I have found Gull-billed Tern, Red-footed Falcon, Serin, Dotterel, at least 6 Essex Ring-billed Gulls (including the now sadly departed Rossi), Thayers Gull and the Slaty-backed Gull when it was at Pitsea along with several Red-backed Shrikes and Wrynecks. This really is little reward in 25years, apart from the two UK firsts of course. I am now tending to bird more elsewhere, in more rarity and bird rich locations (Fair Isle, Scilly, Norfolk) , in just a few weeks this autumn at these locations I had found Arctic Warbler, Barred Warbler and Little Bunting on Fair Isle and Olive-backed Pipit and Buff-bellied Pipit on Scilly.

Essex just doesn't do it for me anymore. apart from the gulls on the tip each winter

 

[dwatsonbirder]

Still some quality birds there Steve! I think it's also a case of being lucky and just being out in the field as much as possible in prime conditions. I found proportionally more birds in Essex than Norfolk, probably due to lower coverage, and some decent areas which are almost unwatched. I recently asked a top self finder (no names but he is one of the best) what his success to finding rares was, his response was "it's easy, just get outside and work select bits of habitat". I've tried that and sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn't. Let's not forget why they are called "rare birds" afterall! Essex has some great sites, both well known & little known. The key it to just get out there!

 

[The sniper]

The beauty of it is that birds can turn up any place any time,could be on a top reserve or it could be in your local park,ok they tend to turn up due to extreme weather or other patterns but you just never know,I have started frequenting more coastal sites the last couple of years,before this I just worked my few local patches,it was my way of gaining experience,I found decent birds like Goshawk,marsh tit,redstart locally but nothing in Steves league,its almost like my progression now is to start working other areas,checking each bit of scrub meticulously until something does turn up and I am sure given time it will.

I do think some people are put off reporting stuff,usually novices who are maybe not 100% sure,don't want the aggro of being wrong or being ridiculed and for every 100 mistaken identities of birds there's probably one Thats overlooked and is actually rare.

Also with essex,I know the west of the county s probably not going to really produce anything rare but I never see anything reported from anywhere west of Chelmsford and north of Brentwood/wanstead,surely this "non" or low coverage hinders us as well???

 

[Steve Arlow]

For many years I was out all of my free time covering Gunners Park in spring and autumn, wader habitats at peak times etc and saw some interest stuff however when one Pied Flycatcher in the park is the highlight, when say Reculver has 15, plus Greenish Warbler and an RBF it gets hard to keep going out, especially when you can see Reculver from Wakering Stairs.

My area also has the added disadvantage of having inaccessible Foulness Island in the way which catches a lot of the South East Essex stuff, Gunners just gets the filter throughs.

Certainly been out enough in my neck of the woods to know that if the East Wind Blows go to Norfolk. Essex in my opinion is the worst east coast county for scarcities, rares and migration in general despite the efforts of dedicated patch workers.

I'm amased how little in the rarity front actually turns up at Bradwell Bird Obs given its position at the north end of the Dengie, its opposite Colne Point, is relatively exposed to arriving migrants and has a great little woodlot, its Essex all over unfortunatetly.

I think it says it all when there are at least a dozen ex-pat Essex birders living and birding in Norfolk.

There will always be good birds in the county just not to the regularity of other nearby coastal counties. We hope to get an autumn Yellow-browed Warbler, Red-backed Shrike or Wryneck where as Suffolk, Norfolk and North Kent can annual hope to get much rarer than this.

 

[The sniper]

Here's hoping for a rareity at Bradwell tomorrow as I am off there in 6 and a half hours!!!


Saying all that,my dream is to live on the North Norfolk coast!

 

[dwatsonbirder]

Good luck at Bradwell, the Richards pipit, firecrest & YBW I found were there!

 

[The sniper]

Went last week in the fog,had Black redstart and a brief view of YBW,that was the first time I have been there surprisingly enough seeing as I have pretty much even to all te essex coastal sites at least a dozen times each,looks such a cracking place for birds

 

[Steve Arlow]

It seems expectation of Essex birders is coming across Pied Flys, Ring Ouzels, Firecrests, Lapland Buntings with Yellow-browed Warbler, Red-backed, Great Grey Shrikes and Wrynecks being the hoped for 'rare' birds because we often don't get much better than that, rarely but never as OBP and Desert Wheatear have proven.

Look at how many, rather how few, records there are of Radde's and Dusky Warblers there are in Essex compared with Suffolk and Kent, and we're still waiting for a Bluetail even though they're commoner than Bluethroats these days....:-C

I guess we really should savour the rares we do get as it might be a while before we get another.

 

[The sniper]

Had a male hen harrier & woodcock at bradwell this morning so far,along with the usual stuff

 

[birdermoose]

This thread insipred me to get out birding today and I went to my Local patch with the mentality that I was going to find something good and I did find a good local bird in being a Stonechat which is a rare bird in the Chelmsford area. So I suppose if more and more people gat out birding more often and adopt a local patch who knows what may turn up in Essex. In 2 years of watching a small flood plain near a busy road bridge just outside Chelmsford I have found A Glossy Ibis, Whinchat, Owl sp and Stonechat. I wonder how many small patches like this in Essex are not being watched and how many gems are being missed.
But I have to agree with the general consensus that Essex is not great for rarities although it seemed better before I startd Birding prpper. In 4 years of hard birding in Essex I have found 1 Glossy Ibis, 1 Yellow-browed Warbler, 4 Caspian Gulls a Goshawk and a few others not exactly the best self found List for 4 years, even for a young birder.
But in the mean time lets not take for granted the current birds in Essex because I bet some birders from around the world wish they were seeing the birds we see on a regular basis in Essex.

 

[Brian2]

Looks likely that when they have finished with Wallasea we'll have one of the UK's premier sites on our doorstep and you'd think some of the Kent birds will take a look at it

can't wait!

 

[Steve Arlow]

Wallasea Island could be good but it will be many years before its really attractive to birds. Many years to complete the work and just as many for it to really become a reserve.

As with most wetlands that are created it will take time for inverts to become established and that can take a long time. As long as there are some fresher/brackish pools along with the tidal areas, ie somewhere for the waders to hangout over high tide and for less Salt water tolent species to utilise then the possiblities are very high.

Winters here soon so will be hitting the tip again looking for that rare gull that will just hits all the right buttons, I'm missing Laughing Gull for my tip list so would settle for that this winter, as well as trying to beat my winter seasons Caspian Gull record of 44 different individuals that is.