After an uneventful seawatch on Monday, where the conversation was largely about a Stone Curlew being found on the beach at Shoreham that morning – a fantastic find, we returned home and I went into Osprey-watch mode. This consists of staring out of the window wondering why the Ospreys fly over Angmering rather than over me. I was roused from my reverie be a couple of funny wader calls, and looked out to see a Stone Curlew doing a noisy circuit of the field behind our house. Unbelievable! Unfortunately, it flew over the hedge to the next field before I could get Karen on it, but it appeared to land, so we dashed out to try and relocate it. After a while Karen saw it fly and land close to where I was, and I was able to get a few photos before it vanished into the crop, never to be seen again despite hours of looking. This is only the fourth Stone Curlew I’ve seen in the UK, and easily the best views. Was it the Lancing bird? Perhaps, but there would be more than one bird arriving that morning, so who knows? Here’s my best picture, along with a few more pictures from the spring.
It’s been a while
A winter of rain combined with walking without a camera to get my miles and fitness up and weight down has meant that there haven’t been many photos taken. This Firecrest that was feeding in brambles near us was utterly unbothered by us and gave superb views. With any luck it will stop raining soon…
Spain
We’re just back from a trip to northern Spain, with five nights in the Picos de Europa and three more in Somiedo. Autumn isn’t the best time for birding, many of the birds have gone south by now, but there’s much more than birds. The place is stunning, and on top of the Wallcreeper, which was my most-wanted European bird, the animals were superb, although they took some finding.
Costa Rica Photos
It’s not just birds
There’s lots of wildlife in Costa Rica, and just because we’re birders doesn’t mean we don’t care about the rest. Here’s a sample of the rest of the wildlife from today, three of which were the stars of the day.
Costa Rica
We’re in Costa Rica at the moment, on a birding tour. It’s all going rather well, with a few days in the ominously named Cerro de la Muerte proving somewhat less deadly than threatened, but had some superb birds that were high on my must-see list. We’re now down in the steamy lowlands with a day of forest birding ahead of us. Here are a few pictures to be going on with.
Walk for Water
As mentioned in my last post I’ve been in training for a charity walk for Atlas Copco’s pet charity Water4All, which provides sanitation and drinking water facilities to areas without any form of sanitation. It’s a great cause and this year we’re fundraising to support a project providing facilities and education for a village in Uganda. I’ve been to Uganda (but not to that village), so it feels a bit more personal.
The walk is 41 miles between our Burgess Hill and Eastbourne sites and for most it is done over two days (with a stop over at a youth hostel). Four of us decided to do the whole thing in a day. 41 miles is a bit further than I’ve walked before, but the added 1500 m of ascent provides a much bigger challenge than normal.
Yesterday was the big day: a start in Burgess Hill at 0345 and we made great time in the morning with a couple of stops, magnificently supported by Karen in the car. Early afternoon saw Fran hit the rocks, as blisters and serious pain in the hips hit hard, slowing us to, almost literally, a crawl. At our 28 mile stop we decided to give it another 4 miles and see whether she could realistically hope to finish. A combination of Lucozade, pain-killers, courage and incredible stubbornness, not only meant that she could pick up the speed, but she ended going up the hills on the Seven Sisters faster than I was. Do not tell her she can’t do something!
We rolled into an empty car park just before 2000, after a great day with great company, we had a right laugh, even when it was hurting. Many thanks to Dave, Darren and Fran for their great company, Karen for excellent support and Emily for arranging the whole event.
(You can still donate to to this great cause, my link is below)
https://www.justadrop.org/fundraisers/water-4-all-fundraising-walk-mike-galtry
Back to normal
It’s not been a vintage winter bird-wise, and I’ve managed to miss quite a lot of the decent birds that have been around, but the on-foot birding has mainly been a build up for a walk for charity that will take me further than ever before. The bird highlights have mainly been local, with a regular Barn Owl, and even up to three birds at once, hunting the fields behind us.
Too many pictures…
It’s only taken weeks, but I’ve finally finished my pictures from Antarctica. There’s a link to them on my OneDrive here: Antarctica 2024. There’s a lot of them and they’re full size (rather than the smaller ones here) so they might be quite big.
In the meantime, here are a few pictures from our day out in Ceibas on the way home.
Heading North
Boxing Day was the beginning of our trip back north and started cloudy and windy. Eventually we found Orcas in the Gerlache Strait and a one last zodiac cruise around Ketley Point on Rongé Island gave us a last Adelie Penguin, more Chinstraps and Gentoos and then nice views of Shags with snake-like chicks. As we looked for shelter around Brabant Island it was scenic but very windy, but in the strait between Brabant and Lecointe Islands it was still and a glorious way to end our time in Antarctica.
The next two days were the crossing of the Drake Passage. The first day was bumpy and the seawatching from the bridge was very quiet, with the 100 or so Blue Petrels the only species into double figures. The following morning was quieter, but still windy, but there was much more activity, finally we had numbers of Snowy Albatross, mainly immature, but we had one adult bird distantly among the closer Southern Royals. As we neared Cape Horn it was calm, and as we headed for home there was one last surprise, as a Subantarctic Shearwater went past.
We landed in Ushuaia the next morning and flew up to to Buenos Aires for one last day’s birding…