Birds, wildlife and travel
Strid Woods is glorious at this time of year, but sadly worse for the lack of Wood Warblers (good job we found one in the New Forest).
Of a few singing Pied Flycatchers, one posed well for us, and Karen found a Dipper sitting quietly and close under a bridge.
A trip to the Yorkshire coast without 500 pictures of Gannets? Apparently it is possible if you spend all your time at Flamborough instead of Bempton Cliffs. You can get some smart birds too.
Back to birds today with a trip to Dungeness. There won’t be many days’ birding in the UK when a Hoopoe doesn’t get into the top three birds, but it was a rubbish distant view, whereas the Kentish Plover (still too distant for a good photo), Bittern and Great Crested Grebes, were excellent.
(These photos are better viewed at full resolution, so click on View full size below the picture.)
What no birds? An afternoon out butterfly hunting on Saturday, yielded some nice butterflies and a bit more besides.
An evening trip out to see some Turtle Doves looked to have been in vain, but one turned up as we were about to give up and gave us some cracking views. No purring, but it would have been drowned out by the Nightingale belting out from the bush behind us.
Wood Warblers aren’t doing well in the south. Not long ago they bred regularly in Sussex, but now we have to go to the New Forest to find them and they’re getting harder there too. Fortunately we had one today, and it was reasonably cooperative. There are a few pictures from last weekend too.
Another sunny day and an afternoon that started well with a new bird for the house list, in the form of a Honey Buzzard on its way north. No photos of that, but a Bee Fly was laying eggs by the pond. A trip to Pulborough yielded the hoped for Tawny Owl chicks, Nightingale and Adders.
There’s much to be said for a pre-work seawatch. On a good day it can send you into office buoyed up with early success. Today it made the prospect of a morning’s work an attractive improvement.
Still, the reward came in the garden this afternoon. A flock of 11 Red Kites drifting east at lunchtime was remarkable as we have only had singles before at home, but pride of place goes to the magnificent male Redstart that took up residence in the back field. It wouldn’t cooperate enough for a decent photo, but these digiscoped ones show it reasonably.
Colder today and relatively bird free. On the upside, the Adders today were a bit more torpid than yesterday’s Grass Snake.
After finding a large Grass Snake in the pond (which slithered off before I got the camera) we went for a look around the commons. It was warm and pleasant in Sussex today. and the birds were enjoying it. A final stop off at Cissbury Ring for the seven Ring Ouzels there at the moment had a bonus in the form of a Black Redstart too.
