Twenty months since my last lifer and six since my last British species, this one was a corker. Perched openly in a tree with its long black-bordered plumes, the heron put me in mind of Rod Stewart. (Did I ever tell you my Rod Stewart story?…)

So what’s a squacco heron doing in Somerset? And what does squacco mean? The bird is a Mediterranean migrant from Africa so this one has overshot. The Bay of Biscay looks to be the most northerly colony. The species is in the same Ardeola genus as Chinese pond heron, which I saw in Singapore. That puts it before the cattle egrets and true herons, and after North America’s green heron.

Squacco seems to come from the Italian name for the bird. Some chap called Francis Willughby coined it but, more important, got the serious taxonomy ball rolling in the process. Ball rolling is an apt metaphor because he also gave an early description of the game of football. And with no end to the trivia he was born at Middleton Hall, now an RSPB reserve.

Betcha you’re glad you learned that.

Chew Valley was quieter but Herriotts held a splendid drake garganey, a couple of shovelers and still a goldeneye. I completed the three reservoirs at Barrow Gurney, where I first heard sand martins then, with delight, found their nesting bank. I have a dim memory of hearing about this. It’s artificial of course but makes the yomp round both tanks worthwhile in the summer.

So a fine day out after recent incarceration to get new versions of Let the Time Come and The Honeyeaters’ Tree to the printers. Still working on ‘em though…

Away from Santa Clara County on April 22:

“Large straggly flocks flying north close to the water were Brent geese. There were also birds very high and in some kind of strung out formation. They may have been Brents but I have seen cormorants like this – although not in their hundreds as these flocks numbered.

“Other groups had about a dozen per flock, flew close to the water and looked like divers. I fancied red-throated from a slight drooping of the heads. Large straggly flocks of smaller birds completed the procession – scoters?

“None of these was really close enough to get any more than an impression of their general colour scheme. The sun was also coming round to behind them to make matters more difficult.

“Ideas, anyone? In any case it was certainly a sight worth seeing.”

They’ve been slow coming through Portishead – non-existent bar Portbury Wharf – but I’ve managed to notch a couple of early dates in the last week. The first was swifts over Barrow Gurney on the 26th. That wasn’t the intention: I was on my way to Chew Valley for black terns, which didn’t show. Still, swifts were also out in force there.

Not much else though. A day later swifts were again a story by Dowlais Farm, south of Clevedon. Again they weren’t the target; whimbrel were and they didn’t disappoint. A couple picked their way along the muddy shore. The coast was also dripping with wheatears, a few yellow wagtails flew over and a lesser whitethroat flitted through a hedgerow. It’s not often I log that before common whitethroat although one of those did pop up a few minutes later.

Then the weather kicked in and put an end to the month’s birding. Next up may be spotted flycatcher. That’s way more probable than nightingale unless I try Wetmoor again. As for Arctic tern or any sort of skua… Saints are more likely to win the Premiership.

Oh, didn’t I mention their promotion?

This is like a lifer for me. I have one dodgy heard-only record from Rutland Water in 1999 but today’s bird by the South Hide, although still not seen, was unambiguous – a noise I can’t recall hearing before. It was more strident than I’d expected. A whopper of a grasshopper would be needed for that volume – bigger than we get in this country anyway.

True to form I was about to give up when the bird called. The morning had been good all the same with redstarts, one peregrine powering over and a brief glimpse of a barn owl, which alone would have made the day. One greylag goose was new for the reserve, as of course was the gropper. A singing garden warbler made it a hat-trick.

That took a few moments to identify but when it sank in, I realised that I’d heard one at Ham Wall on Friday. There’s a trick to separating it from blackcap that the field guides don’t tell you about. Yes, the song is quieter and more complex but I think the clincher is when you can’t decide whether you’re listening to a blackcap, song thrush or sedge warbler. The species manages to whistle through the repertoire of all these birds.

Swallows aplenty, a handful of sand martins and my year’s first house martin completed the roster for the visit.

Now the bad news. The monstrosity in the top picture is a new bridge that connects Port Marine to the Wharf. Behind it are a few of the extra houses that have sprung up in my time here. The bridge has been threatened a while and one had grown complacent that it wouldn’t happen. Now here it is. I’ve largely stopped going to the reserve because it’s already overrun with fucking dogs. Now the floodgates will truly open.

Just as bad will be the onslaught of people. The second picture shows the state of the middle hide when I got there – every single window and door open. The same was true for the tower hide. No log books in either; benches missing from the latter. We can expect worse.

And it’s certainly the end for the wildlife value of the site.

The two long-billed dowitchers were also still present, one sporting the reddish wash of breeding plumage so they may be off soon. The usual black-tailed godwits, one ringed plover and a marsh harrier completed the species of note.

A few swallows were in and Ham Wall, over the road, gave me the electric chatter of a sand martin. Migrants are trickling in but a trickle is what it seems to be this year. Two reed warblers also chuntered away and it’s unusual to get them before sedge warblers, of which there were none.

So, what’s up next? Cuckoo, tree pipit and wood warbler, according to my records. May have to try the Quantocks for those tomorrow. But right now… it’s the small matter of Saints at home to Reading for the Championship title, methinks.

This species is fast becoming a Somerset speciality. Indeed that’s the only British county where I’ve seen it – first at Chew Valley in 2009, then a pair last year at Blagdon and Chew (again). And the two birds down at the Somerset Levels last Tuesday were highly likely this latter pair. They’ve been on their travels though, to the South Coast and back.

So have I. Since Widewater, I returned from a long weekend with the brothers at Steyning via Selsey Bill, which was quiet apart from the year’s first red-breasted mergansers. I tried without success for the hawfinches at Eastleigh, close to Winchester, before a yomp through Denny Wood in the New Forest in the hope of woodlarks. No joy with them either.

That was all Monday, with an overnight stop in Bournemouth so that I could hit seabirds and migrants the next morning at Portland Bill. Plenty of gannets, guillemots, fulmars, wheatears, a shag and one swallow. It’s summer! Then it was a haul up to Shapwick, which also had a marsh harrier, five ruff, booming bitterns and squealing water rails.

112 species for the month – not bad.

Now Somerset is my top British county with my first ever English occurrence of this white gull. Five years have elapsed since my last sighting at Fraserburgh; only Forfar and Ullapool have also contributed records. In with a distant roost of herring and lesser black-backs and the light fading fast, the Cheddar bird was nevertheless easy to pick out in its paleness.

Earlier the same day another bout of three new species at Chew Valley took that site racing past Upton Warren. I caught up with the long-tailed duck and the flock of yellowhammers while a mistle thrush sang in the distance for a surprising addition to the list.

Another theme recently has been early birds and yesterday was no exception, apart from being exceptional. Two Sandwich terns off Widewater Lagoon at Shoreham beat my 2006 record by 25 days! True, most of my sightings have been in Scotland but this does continue a trend of migrants weeks ahead of time. The weather has certainly been crazy enough this year to encourage them. Am I alone in thinking the last few weeks have been unnatural?

Or Cat’s Back or, most prosaically of all, Black Hill. But in any case the easternmost spur of the Black Mountains, which puts it in Herefordshire and thus in England. Which is rather exciting because the bird I heard yesterday (and Allan and Heidi saw, lucky them!) was only my third English record for the species. It follows the Forest of Bowland in 2003 and somewhere in Northumberland in 2006. Both a long time ago and it’s even nearly three years since my last encounter in the Pentlands. That’s what you get for moving away from Scotland.

Lagopus lagopus, which makes red grouse the nominate species of the ptarmigans. Yup, it’s really a willow ptarmigan and not a grouse at all but not many in this country bother with that.

So, it was a good year bird and several of those have started appearing lately. Today was my earliest wheatear, on the Severn Estuary coast south of Dowlais but north of Blake’s Pools. A distant grey plover was also new for 2011. Three days back, Upton Warren had my earliest little ringed plover and not quite earliest avocets. My trip to the Midlands also brought one peep from a tawny owl at the aunt’s place in Kidderminster.

Last week at Chew Valley the spotted sandpiper was showing well, the wintering garganey was still around and the Somerset list went up by one somewhat junk bird. An Egyptian goose has been hanging out by the picnic site for a while. I didn’t go for it but it found me as I scanned the causeway end for the long-tailed duck. No duck, but the one goose.

On 178 species Somerset now ties it up with Angus, which is a county with plenty of red grouse.

What with my earliest singing blackcap on the 28th of last month; blackbirds yesterday; bees and red admirals in abundance at the end of February, including one that found its way into the house in my washing basket! With windows open to cool my room the last couple of weeks. With the prospect that this will be one of the warmest UK winters.

With all that I went to what I’m calling Dowlais to try to beat my record for first arriving wheatear, which stands at the 21st. This is the Severn Estuary coast south of Clevedon and it was chilly and misty and rather more seasonal than of late. My harbinger of Spring didn’t show but skylarks and chaffinches were in song, which seemed a touch early (but not compared with 2010!)

It’s been a few weeks of not much birding since the yellow-browed warbler at Chew, as I’ve beavered on getting The Honeyeaters’ Tree to print. Job done there so I’ve toyed with the idea of putting myself back in the Machine to rescue my finances.

Therein lies the rub: they are still too robust to get a Jobseekers Allowance. I should have spent that £16,000 on drugs and guns instead of investing it. That just goes to show that the government is only interested in getting consumers back to spending rather than putting people in to work. Anyway I can think of better ways of investing my time than the rat race.

Where was I? Oh yes, recent birding: one stonechat has reappeared at Portbury Wharf; the black redstart is still hanging round by Portishead Pier; a male goosander dropped in for a day at the Marina; nine magpies sat on the roof of Gibb Towers. And I swear a female white wagtail has been wintering on Portishead High Street. She’s a uniform pale grey from forehead to rump; not even a juvenile should look like that later than the autumn. There are no references to the phenomenon on the Web and I wonder if such birds are simply overlooked.

Roll on migration anyway and let’s get the year list going.

My peregrinations were taking me along the Hobbs Beach Track and away from the island’s wooded section, where my target passerines lurked. I retraced, peered into the empty little penguin nest boxes on my way and headed uphill to the trees. I didn’t get that far before my next lifer, not a passerine, but a duck.

Even New Zealand‘s mobile waterfowl had a hard time against the coming of Man. Most of them could fly but their principal predator, the swamp harrier, hunted from the air. It was more effective to freeze and let camouflage do the work. This is futile in the face of a dog, cat or a mustelid. What’s one of those? It’s a stoat, weasel or ferret. They’re all totally alien to the country and they’re not exactly pets gone wild. Nor are they farm animals.

Get this. Some idiot decided ferrets would control rabbits.

Even bigger idiots introduced them to do this and, as with the Queensland cane toad, that’s about the last thing the creatures did, preferring instead to go for sitting ducks – literally. So the brown teal is now critically endangered; there are fewer than 1,000 in the entire world. They’re as good as extinct. There’s really no way back from that low a number.

Oh, some people – very fine people – try but the future history is written. Rising populations of all the world’s endangered species does not fit with 7 billion human beings, doubling every 50 years and doubling its per capita resources grab even faster. Something will have to give, some choice will have to be made. A crunch, environmental not credit, will come and the smart money is on Homo sapiens to muscle its way to the top of the pile. We’ll sacrifice the lot before being the last to go down.

So, while it could, my life list went up by one with a pair of brown teal lurking on the edge of a pool in New Zealand’s biggest zoo. I didn’t feel guilty about ticking them, nor any of the other survivors, in those circumstances. There wouldn’t be another chance.

And the ducks were where they were supposed to be. A few centuries earlier I’d have been tripping over them. Just like our ospreys, red kites and sea eagles, and California’s condors, all of which are also on my life list. They look like success stories now but the spectre of the crunch looms for them too. ⇐ ⇒