Birds, wildlife and travel
A fair question. We haven’t been out much and when we have, the birds have been distant. Sunday was no exception, with a freezing vigil at Horse Eye Level eventually yielding a nice male Hen Harrier and a Marsh Harrier, but not the hoped-for Short-eared Owl. As ever, everything was distant, so the only photo is of some backlit sheep in a reed bed.
The garden is a dangerous place to be today. A male Sparrowhawk is making frequent visits, a Kestrel is knocking about, a Buzzard is a bit farther away (too distant for a decent photo) but best of all a Peregrine has taken up residence for the last few days. A cooperative bird, it flew over calling while I was telling my neighbour to look out for it. Better still, it was carrying its lunch.
A day of strong, bitterly cold north-easterlies was challenging, but didn’t stop us having a good time at Dungeness. Highlights were Glaucous, Caspian and Iceland Gulls, and our first male Smew for a few years.
Up in civilisation for Christmas, we crossed the border into Lancashire for a gloriously cold day’s winter wildlife.
Leighton Moss delivered our first ever Otter in England, as well as three Egret species and some of the tamest Robins and other common birds I’ve ever seen. Pilling Lane ends were goosetastic.
Q: Why couldn’t the warbler buy a Christmas pint in Titchfield?
A: Because it was Barred
A day out to Pulborough Brooks RSPB yielded distant views of Little Owl and Temminck’s Stint and a brief flyover Hawfinch, but the common birds were more cooperative, with Snipe feeding in front of the hide and Robins everywhere. Photographing the Robins was tricky as they insisted on coming too close.
A trip out to Eastbourne today, for a look at the wonderfully confiding first winter Black Guillemot that has taken up residence. It’s a cracking bird and really gave us a show, coming incredibly close, fishing and generally being very busy.
I have finally waded through the photos of from Zambia and there are a few more on the Zambia 2017 page and many more (particularly of Leopards and Wild Dogs) on my OneDrive
One last game drive had almost everything popping up to say goodbye. A Lion stayed awake just long enough to give some nice poses, a new Leopard gave us our 11th encounter, probably involving 6 different Leopards, and the Zebras finally came back down from the hills to add themselves to the list (a herd of 5 is hardly the Masai Mara, but you can see Zebras anywhere).
You can have everything: we had two fantastic evenings with a pack of 22 Wild Dogs, having seen three very distantly before. These animals are fantastic: far more impressive than I had expected and also a huge amount of fun. When you arrive you have a large number of sleeping dogs, with the pups a bit like kids on Christmas morning, desperate to get up. Eventually the adults stand up and the doggy mayhem begins. Finally the pups are allowed to join in, and it gets very silly. Here are a few shots, there are many more to go through when we’re home.
Our last night in Zambia at the end of a stellar week. With one drive still tomorrow we have had 10 encounters with Leopards, most of them excellent. Not bad, considering we would have settled for half an inch of tail at the start of the week. It hasn’t just been Leopards, but obviously they have been the highlight.
I suppose the week could have been improved had we seen Wild Dogs, which some people saw, but you can’t have everything.