Blog

Last night we went off looking for Nightjars.  Unfortunately the males on our favoured common have stopped displaying around us and have moved to more inaccessible locations, making it unrewarding, until a female came and sat in front of us for a minute in reasonable light (reasonable for observation that is).  The picture is bad, but remarkable that there’s a picture at all, at 2149.

A trip to the New Forest today was disappointing: only a brief view of a Goshawk and very few other raptors , and little else enlivened an otherwise pleasant walk.

A Swallow on the down behind us

Skylark. It's rude to sing with your mouth full.

Female Nightjar

It'll take your arm off - the Sundew is a carnivorous plant.

Silver-studded Blue

We had two more visits to  Bempton while we were in Yorkshire, but both times the Albatross decided to hide from us, leaving me nothing to do but take pictures of Auks.  Well, someone had to do it…

Yet another Puffin

An angry Kittiwake

Hello Kitty

Guillemot

Homemaking

Razorbill on final approach

Some Sand Eels were hurt in the making of this picture.

Two contrasting challenges over the last two days: yesterday photographing fast-moving, unpredictable, Sand Martins in good light, and today woodland birds in appalling overcast light in the Dales.

The Sand Martins proved two things: 1) take several hundred photos and you’ll get something decent by accident, 2) they’re easier to take when perched.

The woodland birds were tough, but the camera produced some decent high ISO shots, that aren’t too bad after a bit of tweaking.  The highlight was finding a Wood Warbler.  They’re getting so scarce in Yorkshire that I’d given up on seeing one, so having an hour being trilled at by one was a real treat.

Sand Martin

A female Pied Flycatcher in the gloom

Strid Woods, is there anywhere better in spring?

Dipper

A male Pied Flycatcher

A Wood Warbler sings his heart out

Lapwing

We’re up in Yorkshire for the jubilee holiday, and no visit to Yorkshire is complete without at least one visit to Bempton, particularly when there’s an Albatross.

Unfortunately, Albert didn’t cooperate very much, with only a brief show of circling more distantly than last year, before flying out and settling on the sea at a distance.  However, there was lots of opportunities to practice birds in flight…

In Sompting, the Little Owl was grumpy to be photographed.

Kittiwake

Razorbill

A Puffin brings breakfast

Gannet

Jackdaw

Fulmar

Finally, Albert puts in an appearance.

This Skylark was too lazy to fly while singing.

Here’s a few hobbies: birdwatching, photography and beautiful falcons.

Having taken the plunge on a new camera and lens, I took it out on a walk on Friday to see what it could do.  It can definitely focus!  The Hobby was a very brief appearance.

On Saturday we went on a twitch (something of a novelty for us this year) to Kent, to see the Eleonora’s Falcon that has taken up residence.  It was something of a challenge: a fast-moving falcon, among the local Hobbies, and it was also elusive.  A detour to South Foreland to try and see the Sardinian Warbler was wasted time (no two-lifer day for us), but a return to Worth gave us nice views of it perched in its evening roost.
(The pictures are better than this: my gallery plugin seems to be making a mess of resizing them.)

Broad-bodied Chaser

Adonis Blue

Mother Shipton

Large Skipper

Kestrel

Hobby

Corn Bunting

Blackbird

Eleonora's Falcon

They like stooping

One of many Hobbies

Whitethroat

Later in the evening, Eleonora has gone to roost

After a very early start on Friday to do a breeding bird survey before work, we had a late start and an afternoon visit to Woods Mill yesterday.

The transect was more interesting for migrants than breeders, with a total of 11 Spotted Flycatchers seen (including the walks to and from home).  Compared with my highest total of spring Spotties of 3 in May 2019, that’s remarkable.  We had a couple of Whinchats and our first Swifts of the year too.

Woods Mill was rubbish: no Turtle Doves, hardly any Nightingale action and not much else, other than a mass of Beautiful Demoiselles.  We saw a Cuckoo on the way, and also had a Banded Demoiselle, but it was a big disappointment.  The walk back was going to end up in the dark, so we had some hopes for owls: we needed something to make 24 miles hauling a 2 stone rucksack worthwhile.  It paid off: we had a Barn Owl hunting on Bramber Brooks before a stop off in The Castle in Bramber for a beer (purely to make sure it got dark enough, you understand: the beer was a necessary evil).  On the way back we had two other species of owl (including Tawny chicks), and a couple of badgers.  A good end to an average day.

Spotted Flycatcher

Beautiful Demoiselle

Orange Tip roosting on Cow Parsley.

Did the underwing evolve for roosting on Cow Parsley?

With backlighting the orange tip shines through.

The problem with Barn Owls is that they come out to hunt when it's too dark for a decent photo.

Who are you looking at?

We had more signs of spring this weekend, with our first damsels and dragons on the brooks, while overhead a noisy Peregrine was bragging about its dinner.

A full day’s seawatch was disappointing, as usual this year, until late afternoon, after the wind had turned south east and Skuas started moving.  Eventually four Poms came past at close range, along with two Arctic Skuas (and another Arctic harried a Tern just offshore from us: superb).

Meanwhile in the garden, a family of Robins, with five young, are hopping around and our Pheasant is proving approachable.

Small Copper

Large Red Damselfly

Azure Damselfly

The local Peregrine likes junk food

Two Arctic Skuas leading four Pomarine Skuas

I love baby Robins. This is one of five

A truly awful seawatch this morning was saved when Karen found the pod of Bottlenose Dolphins that have been mucking around offshore for the last few days, just as we were about to leave.  About 8-10 dolphins initially appeared in the murk, scarcely visible in the distance, but slowly came in and started their antics.  Unfortunately the light was awful: you couldn’t even see the horizon, making focus and exposure on distant things a nightmare.  However, an hour and a half watching a UK lifer can’t be bad.

Nearer to home, the Raven nest near us has become a noisy place, with four chicks demanding food.   Adding the two adults, the six birds here is nearly half of the total Sussex count for the 1990s. Welcome back!

It’s been a funny few weeks: we both came down with COVID just before Easter and have found it a hard work getting back into the swing of things.  Fortunately when we were struggling to get out, it seemed that all we had to do was send out for delivery of some artificial but fun sustenance – we managed to add White-tailed Eagle, introduced into the Isle of Wight  onto the house list and the day after had six of Knepp’s plastic White Storks.  Not the wildest birds, but still spectacular.

Things are beginning to get back to normal (well, we’re walking as far as ever, just much slower).  Here’s a few pictures from the last few weeks.

Corn Bunting

Bee Fly

White Storks. A rubbish photo, but not bad out of the bedroom window.

It was Easter, so of course there was Chocolate... Tip

Emerging from the National Park into another world.

A Skylark wonders where the grass went.

Pheasants are common around us, but I'm not sure we have had one on the lawn before.

Dawn at Amberley Wild Brooks with the dawn chorus in full swing.

Bluebells

Amberley and Pulborough Brooks had loads of Sedge Warblers.

You ain't seen me...

Five reptiles of three species today, and not a leg in sight.  A Grass Snake and a couple of Slow Worms at home were followed by a walk up to Cissbury in the hope of some migrants and a chance of seeing our Adders again.  The migrants didn’t turn up (other than a Swallow late in the day), but the Adders did, with two (one of which we didn’t see last week).  One of them was chilled enough to allow a close approach and even a bit of gentle gardening to allow some decent pictures.  For some reason I decided against trying to move the stick that was lying on it.

A Little Egret seems to have taken up residence on the Brooks

Our first Green-veined White of the year

Cropping a bit closer

Corn Buntings are abundant in the Monarch's Way