Whisby - Nightingales

Had a great day at Whisby. Didn't manage to get any photographs of Nightingale, although we saw three. Did manage to get a shot of a Blackcap (top), Mistle Thrush (middle) and Willow Warbler (bottom). Hope to go back in the next couple of days.

Edale - Ring Ouzel

Went for a 7 mile walk today with Dawn and her parents to Edale. We walked from Mam Tor to edale, around Dalehead and across to Rushup edge. We found a male Ring Ouzel at Dalehead, looking fantastic with it's white chest band. There were also a good number of Wheatear around. Great day...

Broomhill Flash - Lesser! Canada Goose

Dad and I had a good 2 hours at Old Moor Wetland seeing Pintail, Common Sandpiper, Pink Foot and stack of Wigeon and Teal. After a mug of tea and a few purchases in the shop we went to Broomhill Flash. The Flash had planty of Wigeon, Teal, Canada and Grey lag Goose, Tufted and Ruddy Duck and also half a dozen Goldeneye. We had been there an hour when the canada's were spooked from the far bank on to the flash. Dad picked up a couple of canada's swimming towards us. One was a lot smaller then the other (see pics above). I got some photos with the camera phone. I think that the smaller Goose is a variety of Canada Goose called either Lesser Canada or Cackling Goose. Nice find. The only question is whether or not it's an escape... Here's the report and earlier sighting on BirdGuides

River Idle Flood bank

Good afternoon spent walking the flood bank of the River Idle. Spotted a Short Eared Owl quaertering the flood plain. There was also a stack of Wigeon and a smaller number of Teal. Nice way to spend a couple of hours.

Thoughts of spring migrants

I have never usaully tried to apply much science to birdwatching, or if I have it's been for planning specific trips to Spurn etc. So I was looking through Bird guides looking for when Spring migrants had been seen in and around Doncaster, in particular migrating Gulls and Terns. I think I will have to make some effort to stop off at Lakeside...Last autumn I managed to find a Black Tern, on the lake. It would be nice to find another Black Tern going the other way and may be a Little Gull. We shall have to wait and see.

Sheffield - Wawings

Why do Waxwings always appear near Supermarkets? The answer is rather simple...the supermarket planners and designers always plant trees that have small berries that Waxwings eat. That got me thinking, do ASDA's etc do this on purpose to attract birders into the car park where they might pop in to spend some cash? What ever the motive (and perhaps its' just the planning permission) it's excellant. With that in mind I stopped by Sheefield, Handsworth ASDA to look for the Waxwings on my way to work today and was treated to about 60 flying around close to the edge of the car park. I wonder if the masses of Wawings will return to the Ikea depot in Doncaster as they did last year?

Potteric Carr

I suddenly found myself with nothing to do on Monday Afternoon, so I headed for Potteric Carr. I headed for Low Ellers first, where there was supposed to be a couple of Pintail. It took a while to locate them but I found them on the near side of the lake. They were a couple of striking males (see pictures below). I tried to get some pictures with the camera phone and scope, as I have done before, but the results were poor. Then I suddenly wondered what the results would be like if I held the Fuji S5000 to the scope’s eye piece. Amazingly this is something I had never though of doing before, despite plenty of experience with Dads digiscoping set up. The results were good, bearing in mind that this was the first time I had tried this and the light was pretty awful.

Male Pintail – taken with a Fuji S5000 ‘hand held’ to the back of my Kowa TSN1 scope

Male Pintail (cropped and edited in Photoshop) – taken with a Fuji S5000 ‘hand held’ to the back of my Kowa TSN1 scope

After a while at Low Ellers hide I headed for the visitors centre and Willow Marsh.

There had been sightings of a Bittern from Beaston Hide, but luck was not with me today…so I spent sometime looking at the feeders, where I got the pictures of the Greater Spotted woodpecker and Jay…and a final digiscope picture of one of 8 Reed Buntings feeding on the floor around the feeders.

Female Greater Spotted Woodpecker – taken with a Fuji S5000

Jay – taken with a Fuji S5000

Male Reed Buntimng – taken with a Fuji S5000 ‘hand held’ to the back of my Kowa TSN1 scope

Clumber Park - Caspian Gull

Took the kids and Dawn for a walk and a picnic to Clumber Park. Parked by our favourite bird tables and walked to the chapel. Just below the weir and opposite the small island I spotted a large pale and smart looking Gull in the middle of the lake. It seemed to be feeding on a large dead fish in the water. It had a huge bill, shallow sloping forhead and pale grey back. An adult Caspian Gull. Overall it looked very smart and clean, and sported a massive bill. The back was too pale for a Yellow Legged Gull and its bill too pale. Unfortunately all i had to get a picture was a digital camera and no scope, but I did get a couple of pictures. You'll just have to believe me that it is a Caspian!!! After watching the Caspian feed on the dead fish we continued on our walk. We had our picnic by the bird tables and I managed to get some good shots of Great Tit and Marsh Tit on the bird feeders. Later on Dawn took Ryan to Potteric Carr and managed to spot her first Water Rail and just to prove she had seen it also got a picture...

Spurn - Thrushes and three first's!

After a great day at Spurn, with Dad a couple of weeks earlier, we just had to return for another go at migration watching. So we both booked the time off work and started to plan the trip. We planned as much as we could, however the only thing we couldn’t plan or predict was the weather. It wasn’t just raining that morning; it was “pouring” it down! The roads leading to Spurn were flooded and thoughts flashed through my head of the point being completely washed away. After driving around Easington watching Redwings and Fieldfare, we made our way to the observatory. It became obvious that the best way to spend the morning was from within the sea-watching hide, protected from the elements. We joined the other birders already in the hide, and immediately started picking up the birds that they called out. It was like sitting next to a motorway, watching the different types of cars go back and forth; only these weren’t cars but birds! The main birds moving were Little Auks. Almost all were flying north, at varying distances from the coast. The count for the morning was 226. We also saw one Red Throated diver flying above the horizon a good distance out, a couple of Great Skua sitting amongst the waves, playing with gulls, Gannets flying north and south and a number of Guilemots heading south. There was also a number of ducks, mainly flying south. These included Common Scoter, Wigeon, Teal, and Mallard. The other main attraction was the masses of thrush’s flying in from the continent. The birds would have left the continent very early in the morning and taken 4-6 hours to fly over the sea. The groups were made up of Redwing, Fieldfare and Blackbirds, with Redwings making up the majority of the birds. The final observatory count for the day was 7000 Redwing, 3000 Fieldfare and 1045 Blackbirds! They were flying straight towards us, then turning left or right to touch down on land. Upon hitting the land they fell like stones into the nearest cover, and started looking for food. We stayed in the hide until 12:00, and decided it was lunchtime, all the sea watching had made us feel hungry! We drove to the narrows on Spurn and had lunch in the car while trying to look out to sea through the car window. After lunch, and deciding the weather was a little clearer, we headed for the dunes at the end of Spurn. With the rain still lashing down we got all our wet weather gear on and as soon as we started walking the rain stopped, hurray. There had been a Little Bunting at the point for most of the previous week, so I convinced Dad that we had a chance of finding it amongst the scrub. The point was covered in thrushes, literally. We started off walking around the scrub and old derelict buildings and found Chiffchaff, Blackcap and Goldcrest, the later being just feet away from us. I wasn’t sure where the Little Bunting had been seen before, until we met another birder who told us that it had been seen near the ‘green beacon’. So we headed back to the beacon to search for the bunting. As we stopped and searched, Dad spotted a Brambling in a tree and we soon located a small group of about 15 birds. They are stunning little birds, full of colour. It must be amazing to see the huge dense flocks of Brambling in the summer breeding grounds. We followed the path around after seeing the Brambling and I spotted a small Bunting at the base of a nearby tree. I moved a bit closer and managed to get good enough views to realise that it was the Little Bunting, I called Dad, but by the time he walked down the path to where I was the Bunting had gone! Well they said it was elusive and they were dead right! By the time we finished walking around the point dunes it was 14:15, so we headed for the narrows again, to spend the last hour sea watching. We saw more Little Auk flying north along with Gannets, Common Scoter and Brent Geese. We left at 15:30, after having another wonderful day, despite the bad weather. The day brought three firsts for me, Little Bunting, Great Skua and Brambling. Despite the excitement of seeing three firsts, the most amazing part was being at the point with thousands of thrushes erupting from every bush. It was hard to stop and look at a single bird without it being lost amongst the masses. There was 4 Ring Ouzels reported at the point that day, I heard at least one and Dad had a half sighting of one from the rear. They were definitely hard to find with so many other thrushes around. We will have to return in the spring to see the same birds heading in the opposite direction. Wonderful.

Spurn - Raddes, Yellow Browed Warbler and our own Firecrest!

I went with my Dad for what is becoming an anual pilgrimage to the birding mecca that is Spurn Point. We arrived full of hope and were not sure how things would work out, but as it turned out the birding was spot on. We started at the Blue Bell Cafe and car park. As soon as we pulled in a group of birders were watching a tree. As I got my boots on Dad went to see what they were upto...our first good bird of the day insued, a Yellow Browed Warbler. This bird would prove a real pain for many during our frequent returns to the car, as two Goldcrests shared the same tree (but more of that later). It's amazing how you can confuse a Goldcrest and a Yellow Browed when you are desperate to see the later! We stopped and admired the tiny gem for a good length of time before getting ourself ready for a walk. As we did a birder came running into the car park telling all that the Raddes Warbler, found the day before, had been relocated on Sammies Point. We dicided then to walk from the car park to the Crown and Anchor pub before deciding whether or not to walk upto Sammies. So we set off to find our own birds. After finding little and arriving at the Crown and Anchor pub we started the 2 mile walk to Sammies point, seeing Alba Wagtail (White) and a single Wheatear on the way.

Wheatear taken with a Sony Erricson K750i camera phone, shot through my Opticron Bin's It was easy to locate the Raddes as a large group of birders were assembled around a group of small bushes. We joined the bunch and asked of the Raddes wearabouts. At which point the Raddes decided to fly to the smallest clump of trees I have ever seen. The bush was about 10inch thick and offered no cover. At which point some dumb photographer decided that his zoom lense was to small and decended on the bush (and bird). At the same time an old dear in her 90's decided to blind side the Raddes. Well you can hardly blame the bird for buggering off! Fortunately it didn't fly far and we managed to get goods veiws within the half hour. It ended up with the bird playing cat and mouse with 40 birders in hot pursuit, and at one point Dad ending up 4 feet from the Raddes! We decided, after seeing the Raddes that enough was enough and to leave the Raddes and it's admirers alone. We made our way back to the car and drove onto Spurn Point stopping by the narrows for lunch (soup and sandwichs). We scanned the waders on the shore and got a couple of pictures of a Brent Goose and Knot with the camera phone and through the scope.

Brent Goose taken with a Sony Erricson K750i camera phone, shot through my Kowa TSN1 scope

Knot taken with a Sony Erricson K750i camera phone, shot through my Kowa TSN1 scope Dad pickup a large rapter flying at the waders and immediately called out 'Peregrine'. We had excellant views of the impressive predator hunting along the shore line, then rising up and away towards the Lincolnshire coast line. I was determined to find our own 'good' bird in the afternoon and set our sights on the area of Spurn point known as the Chalk bank area. We spent the next couple of hours scanning every bush and where rewarded in kind with a stunning little Firecrest. Our bird of the day as we found it ourselfs, and what a cracking little bird! We went back up to the Blue Bell cafe for one more look around and take a look at the Yellow Browed again. I am glad we did as the funnest moment of the day was watching 20 birders all tell each other that they could see the Yellow Browed, when in fact the Yellow Browed had quite simply decided to 'hide' round the back of the tree, the stunning little bird they could see was in actual fact one of the two resident Goldcrests. Mass hallucination is so funny! So that was it, it was time to go home after a great days birding. Three great birds and great company. what more could you ask for...apart from to return soon.

Lakeside - Black Tern

After working Saturday morning I stopped off at Lakeside to see if any think of interest was about. I set up my scope and began scanning the lake. After spending some time looking at the Herring Gulls and Lesser Black Backed Gulls, I decided to move position. As I walking towards the Beresfords building when I noticed a small, fast flying bird out of the corner of my eye. I immediately took a look through the bins and realised that it was a Juvenile Black Tern. I put the scope down, relocated it and watched on...It was amazing how swift and agile the tern was.

Phoned Dad to come down and take a look, as neither of us had seen Black Tern before. He arrived soon after and enjoyed the bird for sometime before leaving.

Gunthorpe - Red Backed Shrike

"This is the first post of my birdwatching log, so I thought I might as well start with a couple of older records. The first is of a Red Backed Shrike that appeared in someones garden in the small village of Gunthorpe"

Went to look for a female Red Backed Shrike, and found it! It's the first time I have seen one! It was moving between distant trees at the opposite side of a field, you definately needed a scope to watch it. This was the first shrike I have seen and it struck me how small it was.

Hello...

Hello everyone... I hope to record my adventures birdwatching in this blog. Hope someone find it interesting. Below is a picture of me birdwatching.