Welcome to my birding blog - first launched 12th March 2012...
Jan 1st 2016 ff
Happy New Year!
I haven't pressed the shutter button yet on my camera so dull and damp has the weather been! However Barry and I got out on January 1st and managed 72 birds including quality stuff like snow bunting, scaup, smew, 3 species of diver [you'll guess correctly which 3!], med gull, purple sands and [because I like them] parakeets. Since I had decided to try to see my fastest first hundred birds I had been shocked to discover looking back at past records that I would have to get there before January 8th.
Since then we had an afternoon at Blacktoft experimenting in seeing how wet we could get [marsh harrier and fieldfare seen] and I drove round the back lanes of Poppleton [4th January] and picked up rook, mistle thrush and barn owl. So, 79 so far.
Still so very dull, dark and damp. On the 5th I had a good day split between Fairburn and North Cave. Highlights were nuthatch and willow tit at Fairburn and white-fronted geese, brambling and little owl at North Cave. Eleven year ticks in all that day took me to 90.
A day with Barry on the 6th wandering around some of our favourite haunts in the Middlesborough/Hartlepool area proved rewarding. We saw shore larks, pinkfeet, spotted redshank plus a few other more common birds all of which took me to 95 by the time we arrived at Saltholme. 5 to go!
Saltholme: stonechats, pintails, barnacle geese and long-eared owl. 99!
The pager announced a glaucous gull at Jackson's Landing but the sighting was not new and the day was declining into darkness. We decided to go see. Barry spotted the bird straightaway. So record achieved on January 6th. I took the camera from the back of Tiggy and pressed the shutter at last...
Targets 2016!
I promised to announce my targets for 2016 just in case anyone [which I doubt!] is remotely interested. It's all a personal motivator really...
Here they are:
1: See 40 species in/from the garden.
2: See 281 or more species UK.
3: 10 lifers in UK in any combination of birds and butterflies.
4: Website hits to reach 30,000.
5: Go on 2 more birding adventures.
6: Fastest hundred [8th Jan target to beat]. Achieved 6th January!
29.12.15
Goodbye to all that!
A farewell to 2015
Afternoon at Blacktoft waiting for the roost. Goldeneye at Xerox. Here's a photo-copy!
Plenty of marsh harrier activity. The male hen harrier came in and showed well but too far and too dark for pictures. Not bad marsh harriers though.
The Top 15
Looking back over the year I decided to select my top dozen favourite photos. Ended up with 15! Here they are: no dates or captions, just the photos. They can speak for themselves. I just hope 2016's cohort can be as good!
27.12.15
Janus
Janus was the Roman god of doorways - giving us words such as janitor - and of course the month of January. Two-faced, the Roman god looks back into the past and forwards through the doorway into the future. Looking back it has been a good year as my year list has reached 280 - my second best year since serious records began 10 years ago.
I'm also beginning to think about targets for next year. When I worked for a living I disliked targets but now I find I rather enjoy them as motivators. The crucial difference of course is that now I invent my own targets. Challenging but achievable...
This year's targets only led to success in 2 out of five but there were 2 'almost-made-its'! So not bad. More of next year's targets in the new year when Janus is looking the other way!
Back to the present or more to the point, yesterday, Sunday 27th December. Barry and I went to Spurn. For a longer ramble through our day and more pictures see http://barryjohnbishop.blogspot.co.uk/
We began at Kilnsea Wetlands to see the brent geese and scan for a black brant. Needles and haystacks come to mind. At first there were none but they soon flew in, in many diffferent groups. Sometimes just 3 or 4 at other times maybe 50 or 60 at a time. Cue photos.
A redshank landed in front of the hide.
I wonder if by lowering themselves into the water just before take-off it gives a bit of extra lift?
A little egret was present too but in the contrasting light was not easy to photograph well.
Four whoopers flew in - 3 adults and a youngster. As we left in Tiggy they flew over us. I grabbed the camera.
At the Blue Bell cafe Barry spotted a pair of stonechats. Definitely stonechats but my book [Helm Guide to Bird Identification 2014] says of female stonechats: no supercilium. Didn't get a focus lock at first but...
Looks like a supercilium to me!
Male into the sun.
A break at Canal Scrape was enhanced by a roe deer running back and forth.
As we were leaving for Bonby to watch short-eared owls, I spotted the brents in a field. I took lots of photos so I could armchair browse them later. Here's one [centre back].
At Bonby we saw owls but perhaps we were a little late and there were a lot of birders there too. I'll go back when the holiday period is past. Only one shot worth a second glance.
A coastguard helicopter came over heading north.
Not sure if this will be the last post of 2015...
280 UK
22.12.15
Pottering round Hartlepool
For a full account of our day see Barry Bishop's blog at barryjohnbishop.blogspot.co.uk
Near the pilot pier I photographed some knot - plus a few purple sandpipers.
Further out near the gun battery Barry spotted a drake common scoter.
Inside the harbour we saw a red-throated diver and some eider.
I spotted quite close to us [but almost not noticed] a nice group of curlew who seemed unaware of us up on the town wall.
Finally Barry spotted a couple of distant guillemots further into the harbour. Here's one of them.
See Barry's blog for what else we saw: 58 species including some crackers! A good day.
21st November ff
East coast specials!
November 21st took me to Scarborough to see the black-necked grebes in the harbour. Sheila said don't go east so we did!
Lots of great black-backed gulls that would be a threat to anything exhausted by the weather and seeking shelter. Brute of a bird!
The black-necked grebes performed beautifully!
Nice water effects. Favourite shot...
A cormorant preened in the late afternoon sunshine.
Sunday took me up to Hartlepool in search of little auks - I hoped! Met up with Nigel Stewart near the fish dock where a great northern diver was seen before it swam away into the harbour out of view. Nigel pointed out a woodcock coming IOTS! I think I saw that one on Alan Whitehead's blog: In Off The Sea! Pretty sure I spotted one little auk among the guillemots passing by but not certain enough to count.
There were waders about. Ringed plover here plus a few rock pipits.
After a decent seawatch with scoters, med gulls, a red-throated diver close in things went quiet so I moved to Newburn Bridge to say hello to Medusa the resident Mediterranean gull.
I called at Seaton Common as I knew the owls could be around very early. They were.
I had only been there about ten minutes when I spotted that a little auk was now in the harbour at Scarborough. Decided to try for it...
First view: alongside a pale blue hull among the yachts - safer here than out in the open water at the mercy of the big gulls.
They are funny little things: they aren't so much in the water as bobbing about on the surface like a little yellow duck in the children's bath! [Red lighting from the red hull of a yacht]
Those little feet paddle away furiously like little outboard propellers!
Best view.
Charlston's Pond and Seaton Snook
Wednesday 25th November
Targets were the female scaup, snow buntings and a few more shorties. The scaup was soon located but I had quite a walk to get near the bird as it kept going as far from me as possible! Here it is.
A blackbird was feeding on berries.
I moved on to Seaton Snook in search of snow buntings. Twite were soon encountered - there's about 77 in this photo if you include the 2 tails down the left-hand side!
I found the snow buntings near the roped-off area.
I planned to see if the owls would show in a decent light but unfortunately the light worsened as the owls began to appear. Not bad views however...
I watched a stonechat from the car.
The owls came in my direction over the mound.
A couple of kestrels were fighting over a small bird one had caught. Struggling now with the light and poor shutter speeds, these aren't great photographs but they capture the mood of the event, I think. Supported by a carrion crow. Here they come...
Thursday 26th November
I drove down to Wall Heath, Staffordshire to see a late, lingering hoopoe. At the bottom of a landscaped former quarry the bird was quite distant but provided good scope views. Here's the former quarry. The bird was down the bottom.
The twitchers - a select little bunch - were at the top.
As the bird was much too far away for my camera, here's a hoopic from 2014 instead.
Surfing at the Headland - 5th December
All quiet so a trip to see if I could grab a photo of the immature drake surf scoter off the gun battery at Hartlepool. It was a bit further out than I might have hoped but it was there - so that was good.
Oyks were flying past and dunlin were huddled on the beach near the Pilot Pier.
A red-throated diver was on the choppy waters of the marina at Jackson's Landing.
A red-breasted merganser came close.
07.12.15 279 UK 2015
Review of 2015
I set myself some targets for 2015. Here's how it all turned out!
1: Photograph 15 more species of British Birds to get to 300 -and improve some of the ones I have photographed. Achieved: in fact currently on 312 - so 27 new species photographed in 2015.
2: See 300 birds again.
Failed! 279 seen - it was always going to be a difficult target as to hit 300 involves a lot of miles.
3: 10 lifers in UK.
A glorious failure - 9 lifers plus 9 lifer butterflies. The target was very ambitious.
4: Website hits to reach 20,000.
Achieved - currently just over 21,700.
5: BirdGuides photo votes to reach 6,000.
Pretty close: 5,934 and counting!