Mark Lawlor's Nature Blog

5th May was the bird race day but again it was not a hugely inspiring time to be out in the field. There were few migrants to be seen although we did dig out a couple of decent birds. The main thing I noticed about the day was the total lack of “lingering” species - all the early-leaving species had well-gone with not a hint of a Snipe, or Teal, or diver, or such like. We also learnt on the day that our organised boat to Herm for the auks would not be available which was a set-back and scuppered our plans and enthusiasm a little. So the day was a little bit of a damp squib for us and we got a really low total of 77 which was our worst ever. When you know you are on course for a poor total it is difficult to push yourself and we didn’t even record relatively easy species such as Bullfinch, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Common Sandpiper or Goldcrest which we always get.

The highlight of the day for me was a tired Turtle Dove which we just fluked into perched in a tree at Pleinmont. The first Turtle Dove I have seen in Guernsey for about a decade. We also had 3 Common Terns from Fort Doyle, a nice Blue-headed Wagtail, a Merlin belting over us at Rocquaine and a surprise Shoveler at the Reservoir.

Blue-headed Wagtail - Mont Herault, 5 May 24

With a change in personal circumstances it is unlikely that I will be able to get out for proper, long birding sessions any more, so I am going to have to rely on my regular “micro-birding” sessions to find new things. These involve maybe popping out for half an hour for a quick check of somewhere, or stopping for a short stroll on the way back from work, or scanning a couple of beaches from the car etc. However doing this regularly for most of the month was atrocious this May with hardly any waders or land migrants at all. I barely saw anything of note for three weeks.

So I was not expecting much on 21st May when I stopped at Pulias on the way back from work, with very sunny weather and unremarkable winds. I parked at the top car park and walked down the path across the base of the headland, towards the beach at the east side of Pecqueries. There were sparrows flying to and fro and, just as I was nearing the beach, I glanced to my right and saw a small, streaky bird just stood on the grassy path, barely 10m away. “That’s no sparrow” I thought before the bird immediately took flight, flashing its white outer tail feathers, and straight into the nearby Tamarisk.

So, it was clearly a bunting, but I didn’t even get the chance to put my bins on it, and it had now seemingly dissolved into the bush and was nowhere to be seen. Just from jizz, my initial identification was for a female-type Cirl Bunting, and I was pretty sure (unless it was something even rare). But can one really claim an ID of such a tricky species as Cirl Bunt just on naked-eye, one-second views? I really needed to find it again but another circuit of the area revealed nothing at all.

I ventured further, past the pond, to check the small fields east of there in case it had flown a bit more. But if it was in there it was not showing and I became resigned to losing it and having to let it go. I wandered back towards the car ready to go home and it was suddenly there, feeding nonchalantly on the short turf by the bottom car park, and was indeed a Cirl Bunting. Of course, nowadays, Cirl Bunting is not a huge surprise, with this bird fitting the bill. It was very streaky all over including the crown, with broad dark bars behind the eye and below the ear coverts, with a neat whitish spot at the rear of them. The bird showed the contrasting rufous scapulars and slightly rufous breast sides.

This was a patch tick, the sixth species of bunting I’ve seen on the patch, and the fifth at Pulias alone. There are no regular buntings in Guernsey, all species either being rare or at least scarce here. It fed for a short while before the inevitable joe public put it up. I saw it in the top of the Tamarisk again before it disappeared. Another birder saw it a short time later but then it moved on.

Argyresthia brockeella - Garenne, 31 May 24

Coleophora ibidipennella larval case - Garenne, 31 May 24

We did some Barn owl pellet dissection at school and these were the three types of mammal found within. Note no red on the teeth of the white-toothed shrew.

April is an exciting month for birds with most of the new spring migrant species arriving, often in large numbers, but this year I found it difficult to get out for any long birding sessions and most of my sightings were snatched from short visits. The month did not seem to start very strongly in Guernsey and, apart from a few small flocks of Swallows, Sand Martins and Sandwich Terns, I saw very little - not even many Wheatears were coming through.

By 13th April things had started to move and there were plenty of Wheatears, White Wagtails and a singing Sedge Warbler at Jaonneuse headland. On the rocks in the bay I counted an incredible 12 Purple Sandpipers. This has been the main location for the species recently, especially in spring when they move north, but I’d never seen this many before. It was only when I looked on the island database that I realised how good a count it was - the last double-figure count was 11 at Fort Hommet in March 2006 and the last time there was more than 12 was in January 1999. During the 90s there were regular counts of 15-30, then things tailed off slowly until a low of just 1 or 2 per winter around 2015. Nice to see things are picking up.

12 Purple Sandpipers - Jaonneuse Bay, 13 Apr 24 - a record modern count

The next day, 14th April, was a quiet day for me until mid-afternoon when the bird alert went off that a Golden Oriole had been seen. This was my most-wanted species in Guernsey, a.k.a. my biggest “tart”, so I thought it was worth a shot, even though they are notorious for buggering off whenever they feel my presence. I pulled up at the horseshoe at the Reservoir and searched the trees thereabouts to no avail, although my first Common Sandpiper of the spring was present. When Vic arrived we soon discovered that we were looking in totally the wrong place and, after a phone call, relocated ourselves to the top of the hill along Rue des Hougues, Castel where some other birders were. They were scanning the tops of the trees across the valley but there was no sign. I walked down the track to get a bit closer and waited, but all I saw was a Bullfinch. That dipping feeling started to well up in my tum.

I started to walk back and noticed that all the other birders had gone from the roadside and I simultaneously received a grapevine alert that there had now just been two Golden Orioles seen further along Rue des Hougues. I scurried down the road and found the other birders and they indicated where they had last seen them. There was no sign and things were not looking good, then all of a sudden one was sat there in the tree across the field in front of us and I got it in my bins! Finally, after 25 years, Golden Oriole was on my Guernsey list (and indeed my *British List, as I have never even been close to one in the UK before). Unfortunately, just as the camera reached my eye, the bird flew down and away and back into the valley.

Golden Oriole - Rue Des Hougues, Castel, 14 Apr 24 - Can you find it?

Golden Oriole - Rue Des Hougues, Castel, 14 Apr 24 - Can you see it now?

Golden Oriole - Rue Des Hougues, Castel, 14 Apr 24

Golden Oriole - Rue Des Hougues, Castel, 14 Apr 24 - got the tail!

We continued searching for them but they seemed to be moving very fast through the area, and I’d only seen the one so far. We soon saw them both again briefly in the trees alongside the garden of the first house. But again they very quickly took off and we watched as both birds flew north across the road ahead of us, and across the next field and dropped over the hill, probably heading towards Grand Mare. The bright yellow of the male Golden O is so intense, it is a fabulous sight. Another notable feature of this sighting was the very early date. Almost all Golden Oriole records from Guernsey are in May or early June. I can find only two April sightings, both on 21st April, in ‘84 and ‘92. This is a full week earlier than those birds and a whole month earlier than an average sighting. These two males were part of a very early influx into southern UK of about 20 birds.

Golden Oriole makes 279 for my Guernsey List and completes all the non-rarities (at last). As for the next new species, it isn’t obvious and is as likely to be a proper rarity as it is something predictable. Aquatic Warbler is numerically the most likely but the circumstances do not suggest that will happen as I do not generally hang around mist nets in August. My next best guesses are perhaps a Velvet Scoter on a seawatch or, probably more likely due to their increasing trajectory, a Western Bonelli’s Warbler or Little Bunting in the autumn.

Things got quiet again during the rest of the working week but I saw some early Swifts from the house on 20th with one in the morning then a flock of 4 feeding over the tall trees in the evening. These appear to be my second earliest sightings and earliest multiple-arrival, and I had another the next day.

I stopped at the usual car park at Vazon/Ft Hommet, before work on 25th April for my usual quick scan of the area, when I heard a weird “honk!”. I looked up and saw a goose flying away towards Cobo. I could tell from the sound it wasn’t a Greylag and I also knew that it was going to be the Pink-footed Goose that Wayne had seen a couple of days prior on Grande Mare, and it was. A new species for my coastal-strip patch and still very rare in Guernsey with single-figure records. I thought it may be going off but it turned round and headed back overhead when I took a couple of snaps. It carried on across the bay and seemed to turn round again over Richmond probably looking to re-land back on the golf course.

Pink-footed Goose - over Vazon, 25 Apr 24

The next morning, 26th, I stopped again at Vazon and just in the bushes round the car park, I saw 3 Willow and 2 Sedge Warblers in just a few minutes. It is mornings like these that make me wish I could just sack off work and head into the field. I am sure that there would have been quite a bit to see on the west coast headlands. The last birding of the month was on 27th April and I tried a few spots in the Vale. More Sedgies at Grand Pre and Pembroke, finally a first Yellow Wagtail at Jaonneuse and still 7 Purple Sandpipers hanging on there.

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