FLORIDA SNOWY OWL

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Snowy Owl (first winter female), Little Talbot Island State Park - the third record for Florida

SNOWY OWL WAS THE LAST BIRD I EXPECTED TO SEE IN FLORIDA as I booked my flights for the 17th Annual Space Coast Birding Festival last autumn. I had toyed with the idea of having a stopover in the northeast in the hope of catching up with the amazing Snowy Owl influx to the USA but had been talked out of it by Pete when we looked at the chance of heavy snowfall there causing travel delays. I was lucky to avoid a foot of of snow in New York yesterday, the airports were closed and 3000 flights were cancelled across the northeast USA... but the influx had already kindly delivered one of these magnificent owls to Florida instead. There are only two previous records for Florida, which is not surprising considering that Little Talbot Island lies at the same latitude as Agadir in Morocco on our side of the Atlantic! Another irony is that it is not purely the blast of polar air that has affected much of North America this winter that is responsible for the influx but more a bumper lemming year on the owls' Arctic breeding grounds. This morning's encounter was a very special one without another birder in sight on the lonely beach here, the sky completely clear blue in an icy northwest wind. The current cold winter is also affecting Florida, with the temperature in Jacksonville just above freezing at 38 degrees fahrenheit but the wind chill made it feel much colder.

There were a few other birds around and these included: Western Osprey (two); Northern Harrier (four males); Brown Pelican (three) and Northern Gannet (many feeding offshore). A small group of 5 bottle-nosed dolphins swam north and the more sheltered parts of the dunes were full of Yellow-rumped Warblers and Savannah Sparrows. A Palm Warbler, a couple of Northern Cardinals and several Northern Mockingbirds were also here. I usually listen to the radio to relieve the boredom of road journeys in the states and there is always some interesting comment. Today's outstanding contributions were the 16(!) signature sauces for you to try at Buffalo Wild Wings and news reader Renée Montana who reported 130 people killed so far in the crisis in Syria (the present total is estimated to be more than 120,000) - can we believe any of the nonsense on the news here?

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Little Talbot Island beach (Iphone 5S Hipstamatic)

RIBCHESTER RIVERBANK

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Frozen debris on the riverbank, a product of the recent storms.

AN EARLY MORNING WALK ALONG THE FROSTY RIVERBANK produced 37 bird species including one new one in Ribchester for me, Common Raven, which flew across the valley calling. A pair of Common Buzzards circled to the north of the village, a pair of Common Goldeneyes were on the river and two Common Kingfishers were the highlights of a pleasant walk. The three oystercatchers are still along the river as well and a total of six Grey Herons was my highest so far. I have just started to record my local sightings on www.ebird.org. I heard that they will probably enter an agreement with the BTO evenutally but their online input form is by far the most user-friendly. A Song Thrush in hedges near The Boat House was the only one I have seen so far this year and the long-staying Trumpeter Swan was still on the river - I wonder where it came from? The main asset of the patch is the river but there is other potential in the bird feeders around the village as well as the tall trees of the church yard.

OUCH!

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Great Northern Diver (or Common Loon) in evening sun at Brixham Marina

AN ATTEMPT TO PHOTOGRAPH THE SHOWY YELLOW-BILLED LOON at Brixham Harbour in Devon failed, Elvis having 'left the building'. Another product of the recent storms it presumably moved on once the sea calmed and it had fed up for a couple of weeks. Even the Great Northern Divers were on their way out of the harbour too, with only a couple left in the marina in the evening and another two juveniles on the sea off the breakwater. There had been around 10 Great Northerns in the morning plus two Black-throated Divers, a Black Guillemot and an Iceland Gull. The previous day's estimate was double this figure. Brixham harbour has seen previous invasions, it was used by US marines in Operation Overload - the 1944 D-Day landings in World War 2. Around 20 Purple Sandpipers were resting on the old jetty near the harbour mouth, a Slavonian Grebe was off Berry Head, a couple of gannets followed fishing boats in Tor Bay and the tamest Ruddy Turnstones I have ever seen were trying to steal bait from the fishermen's boxes. Also around the harbour were a Common Raven and several Grey Seals. As the sun dipped below the hills behind the town, so did I and the long journey home began.

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The same bird a few minutes later against the sun - it is amazing how different they can look!

QUIET RIVERBANK

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The Ribble at Ribchester - waving goodbye to blue skies and Altocumulus clouds for the next week or so.

THE RIBBLE WAS QUIET AT RIBCHESTER TODAY with generally few birds around and nothing of any real interest. Three Goosanders and three Common Oystercatchers were disturbed by a couple of canoeists that paddled slowly downstream flushing every single waterbird as they went, I hope this hobby does not catch on here! There were also three Northern Lapwings at the school bend and I heard a kingfisher downstream from the Boat House. A Common Buzzard floated slowly across the valley, right over the village and a lone Fieldfare was competing for hawthorn berries with blackbirds in the lane next to the tennis courts. A Grey Wagtail brightened up the dairy farm and there were also Meadow Pipit and Pied Wagtail here. I didn't manage to find a tree sparrow today or a Reed Bunting and many of the hedges have been manicured recently to match the green concrete that surrounds them. There were even fewer birds in the early afternoon with a Little Grebe and a sparrowhawk of note but the best sighting of the day was from the spare room window - a flock of c.75 Pink-footed Geese west over the village, calling, on their way to the coast.