Some corner of a foreign field…

… that is the north of England.

After 25 years down south my influence is obviously starting to work.  On my Friday afternoon walk on the South Downs behind the house I’ve been encountering sheep that are a long way from home.  As well as a small flock of Herdwicks that should be in Cumbria, there’s also a large flock of Swaledales that make the Downs look a bit more like the Yorkshire Dales

Alas, the full Yorkshire influence isn’t quite there, as the Swaledales have flown south for winter from Penrith in Cumbria: the wrong side of the Pennines, which is probably why they’re too soft to cope with winter up there.

Happy Christmas to both of my regular visitors…

Back to normal

We haven’t done much birding of late, and that we have done has had very few photographable birds.

Finally here are a few: a nice Goldcrest in the garden, and a few nice birds from a long walk around West Dean Woods on Tuesday.  Why are Ravens always strongly backlit?

Panama photos finished

The wading through the photos is finally over (apart from the book).  I’ve gathered the pictures from the last few posts into a page here.   There is a link there to many more pictures on my OneDrive.

I need to start taking pictures in Sussex again.  Given the rubbish efforts I managed of a Pallas’s Warbler at Brooklands and my failure to get a camera on the Stonechat and the Common/Pallid Swift at home, I’m in need of improvement!

Once more with feeling

One last set of pictures from the Canopy Camp section of our Panama trip.  When the rest are done I’ll collect these into a trip and put more on my OneDrive.

More from Panama

Another bunch of pictures from Panama, this time from the Canopy Camp.

More Panama pictures

It’s been a week of ploughing through photos, and it’s not done yet, but here are a few more pictures from our time at the Canopy Tower.

 

 

Watch this space

A few hours in Amsterdam should give ample opportunity to put some pictures on the blog, but my battery’s flat, I didn’t bring a European adapter and I’m far too tight to buy one at these prices, so I’ll have to content myself with a shot of a moth taken on my phone. Panamá was brilliant, and there’s a stack of pictures to wade through.

Just another bird

We’re now in the excellent Canopy Camp in Darién and today was the main reason for coming to Panama.  Yes, Harpy Eagle is just another bird, but some birds are better than others.  This female on a nest is up there with the best.  Only one low-res picture, as the internet here isn’t as good as the birding.

What’s in the pipeline?

A morning on the Pipeline Road today started quietly but ended magnificently when the Black-faced Antthrush that I was whistling in turned into a Streak-chested Antpitta before our eyes (it’s twelve years since we were here and I had the calls confused).  The light in the forest is shocking, so the wonder is that there are any photos rather than their quality.

More Canopy capers

A few more pictures from the last few days…