I'm Back!

On Sunday afternoon I arrived back from my RSPB Phoenix Conservation Weekend at Minsmere. I was so tired, so I wasn't awake enough to update the blog in the afternoon. Today we have had the power down since 8am - 5pm, so I have only been able to update till now.

Friday Night
The conservation weekend was excellent. We arrived at Blaxhall Youth Hostel near Snape, and I went into my dormitory. A boy called Louie was in there, who had came from Hereforshire. We had a chat, then shortly after that, another boy turned up, and he was called Gethin. He was from Glamorgan in Wales. Then a boy called Miles and Sam turned up, both from Colchester in Essex. These were my "dormitory buddies." Gethin new a lot about birds, more than the others. He used to be a twitcher, and I think he was more nerdier than me!

We had dinner - Soup, Jacket Potato and Tuna, then Apple Crumble and Custard, yum yum - then had a quiz and a talk from Sarah Wood, a manager at Minsmere. Very good. We then done a moth trap over night. 12:30am, we went to bed.

Saturday
An 8am start was not difficult. We had breakfast - Full English - then looked at the moth trap. We caught a Red Green Carpet Moth, Angle Shades, Large Wainscot, Yellow-lined Quaker and several more. Then we left for Minsmere. We arrived at the discovery center, and were split into 2 groups. One was working in the woodland, and one was on the heath. I was in the wood in the morning, with Gethin, Sam and Stuart, and we were making a log circle for children. It turned out very well, considering we started off with a big pile of leaves and weeds. We had to make a path, then the log circle at the end. We then had lunch, and then went up onto the heath with warden Katie. We had to clear a dip full of weeds, big trees and big scrub bushes so that the scarce Antlion insect could recover from it's decline in the country, and so that Minsmere could be a strong hold once again for the Antlion. This was very fun, but hard working.

We then headed back tot he hostel for a meal, then back to Minsmere for a night walk to the beach. Very relaxing.

Sunday
Today, we were going to Minsmere to see the birds. We had breakfast, and left at 8:50am. We arrived at Minsmere, and we headed for Island Mere. Didn't see much here apart from Red Deer, and Marsh Harrier.

We then went to Bittern Hide, but before we entered the hide, we were treated to something very special. An elderly gentleman was cupping his hands and walking towards us. He had a Blue Tit in his hand!!! It had flown into the hide and had got a bit weary. He handed it over to Mark, our head of the weekend and trained ringer, and showed us the bird in detail. Pitty I didn't get better picks.

When we released it it nearly flew straight into my head. Delightful little thing anyhow. Not much in Bittern Hide, so we headed for the scrape. Not much in here either apart from about 10 Snipe and a possible Female Pintail. We then headed back to the hostel at 11:30am and had lunch, and then left for home.

It was a great weekend, and they think they will hold it at Leighton Moss RSPB in Lancashire, which is the venue of Autumnwatch this year, so there we go. I would have just liked more time looking at the birds.

Today at Lackford Lakes - LIFER

After the horrific storm we had this morning, Dad and I headed for Lackford Lakes. We looked on the sightings board to see that 2 Jack Snipe, 2 Common Snipe, 2 Goosanders and several Crossbill were around the reserve. We headed straight for Bernard's Hide, and a very kind gentlemen directed us to my first ever Jack Snipe!!!!!

We also got a flock of 5 Crossbill, and a Common Snipe too.

As the Jack Snipe wasn't feeding very much, just sitting there sleeping, we decided to move on. We went to the Double Decker Hide. We got the pair of redhead Goosander, and further Common Snipe.

We the back to Bernard's Hide, to see if the Jack Snipe was feeding. He was definitely a lot more active. He was definitely on his Pogo-stick, but not his motorbike, you know what I mean! He was bobbing up and down a lot, but not moving anywhere.

We then went home to finally reveal that the power was on.

Just thought I'd show you this image. It was our neighbours trampoline that had turned upside down in the storm.

It's Half Term now, so I will have golf tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday, but hopefully I will be birding on Friday.

Happy Birding!

Isle of Mull - Day 5

Target Bird - Crossbill

On the Wednesday, it was something that we always do when we come up to Mull, and that is have a guided tour with Bryan Rains - Wild About Mull. This is a fantastic day out, were Bryan takes you around the south of the island looking at Mull's birds and wildlife. There fantastic!

Before we even got on the tour, we had an Otter swim past our hotel, which was fantastic. This was our first Otter for Mull this year.

Bryan picked us up, and then the other guests. We got the Sea Eagle on the nest, then we got another Otter.

We then got another White-tailed Eagle, which soared right over us.

We then got to the Golden Eagles nest, and we were treated to both birds sitting on the top of the hill. Here's 1!

At Carsaig, we picked up a Wood Warbler.

We then moved to the stores, to get lunch, picking up a pair of Hen Harrier on the way. We got to the stores, and we picked up at least one Crosssbill to go onto the year list, where it was chipping away in the trees. We'd already seen Razorbill, Cuckoo, G-N Diver, Common Tern, Stonechat and Whinchat and Eider..... the list gets longer and longer! 

We got to Fidden, where we got Whimbrel, Linnet and Mountain Hare. The, I plunged onto a Tree Sparrow in a stony area. Not great photo's, but still Awesome!!

Here's the Whimbrel and Linnet.

Happy Birding!

Signs Of Winter

Sorry for not getting a blog post out, but here it is. I will make it sharp, so I better get on with it!

I was shell-shocked that my ears weren't being funny, but believe it or not, a Common Crossbill flew over the front yesterday, making its chip call. This is a first for the area in my times, so that's made me chuffed. Another regular visitor into the Garden this morning and yesterday has been 2 or 3 Coal Tits...

When I wrote this post, we had just came back from a long awaited Patch visit to Bosmere, and we had a very good session. I am going to show as many pictures of the stuff we saw as possible.

The Pair of Resident G C Grebes

One of about 60 Long-tailed Tits around the patch today

My first Tufted Ducks of the Winter

Plenty of Black-headed Gulls

An interesting fungus on the tree

The view of Bosmere Lake

Some of the really good sightings around Bosmere that weren't photographed was my first Grey Heron at Bosmere in the tree tops, then flew over mums and mines heads, and a Goldcrest amongst the Long-tailed Tits. Also, a Green Woodpecker was heard yaffling in the wood, and also my first few Fieldfares of Bosmere, but no Redwings yet. Now I didn't put on the blog about our very late nesting Collard Doves, that nested in September! I have a picture of when they were in the nest...

Well, here he is now!

Hopefully going out to the Norfolk Coast on Wednesday weather permitting, so we will hopefully catch some rares.

Happy Birding!

Summer has come early!

The first day of this spring that my Cousin, Dad and I went bird watching in Norfolk. I have already got 130 species of birds this year, and we're not even halfway through April. We first headed to Santon Downham in the Thetford area, looking for the elusive Lesser-spotted Woodpecker, where we parked by the side of a small track for a while. Unfortunately, it didn't show for us, but we did see Nuthatch and Coal Tits in this area. We then moved on to park at St Helen's picnic area further down the track. We walked around the church looking for Firecrest that we were told were more reliably seen here, but not today. My first Willow Warbler of the year was singing in a dense Hawthorn, and shew well on the top of it. The soft churring with a trill was being produced at the top of some bare trees, where Brambling's were feeding in small double figures (10-15).  We walked through the wood through to the river and alongside the trees. A nasally whistle of a pair of Mandarin Ducks flew over our heads and into the trees, lost from our view. As much as we used the 10 minutes to search for the pair of ducks, just a distant call indicated their disappearance. After hearing a drumming noise from the wood, we drove down the road in luck for the Lesser-spotted Woodpecker. we didn't see that, but I then spotted a very early male Cuckoo, hopping from tree to tree, superb. We then drove to Lynford Arboreretum, still within the Thetford area. On arrival we walked around the accessible path around the Paddocks to the bridge. Many small flocks of Crossbill were flying over our heads, but sadly not showing perched. We then tweaked on to a pair of Lesser Redpoll over the bridge at a medium level, but soon disappeared. We then got told by a man that by the Folley area we may be lucky to view Hawfinch feeding on the ground bellow the feeder. He also shew us a picture that he took about 5 minutes ago from that point, so we headed straight there. Within reaching their, a flock of about 10 Crossbill were in the tops of trees, a majority of them were males. After taking a few looks and pictures, we moved on to the Hawfinch, where I first found a female in a short ivy-covered tree. We were then fortunate enough to see 2 females feeding where we were told. Brilliant. A fantastic day.

My cousins link is www.jimsbirdingblog.blogspot.com

TOTAL OF BIRDS FOR 2012 = 134