Flight

Drumming Snipe

Black-tailed Godwit

Shoveler duck

Shoveler pair



Shoveler drakes

Gadwall pair

Marhs Harrier

Lapwing

Action is the reason I got a DSLR. In many cases this means flight, which is generally beyond digiscoping. Here are a selection of shots from the Nene Washes RSPB reserve this morning (22.4.07).

Three photos

Little Owl, Deeping Lakes LWT, Lincolnshire, 21.4.07 (digiscope)



Female Wheatear, Serpentine Brick Pit, Cambridgeshire, 21.4.07 (digiscope)

Fuzzy

A Pheasant croaking and flapping to proclaim his patch, Ferry Meadows, 19.4.07 (digiscope)

Wasp

A whopper at Ferry Meadows, 19.4.07 (Canon PowerShot A95)

Green Ouzel & Ring Hairstreak

I had a bit of an impromptu drive around today (19.4.07) after spending an hour or so trying to ignore a steady stream of golfers and dog-walkers at the Goldie Lane end of Ferry Meadows. I was there because a male Redstat was found there this morning and I craved it. There was no sign.

Ring Ouzel, The Plough (digiscope)
So I cut my losses and went out to enjoy views of heat haze with a couple of Ring Ouzels thrown in at the back of a pub called The Plough, out in the Fens, not far from Farcet. Very nice birds and so much more than just Blackbirds with white collars. Ring Ouzels are shy and untamable, they are Scottish Wild Cats to the domestic moggy which is the Blackbird. With long wings of silver and an ultra-wary disposition, they are not only handsome but very desirable, and it has been nice to connect with the wave of oodles of ouzels which has been flowing through the country recently. I've seen three now, locally, this spring, compared with five in the previous six years.
As I got back to my car a Swift flew by, my first of the year.

Green Hairstreak, Orton Brick Pit (Canon PowerShot A95)
On the way home, I called in at Orton Brick Pit and immediately found a male Orange-tip which actually settled and basked with its wings open. And while gorging myself on the song of my first Nightingale of the year, I noticed a small brown butterfly flitting about. When it settled, wings closed it was clearly a Green Hairstreak, one of my favourite butterflies.
Some recompense for missing the Redstart.

Maxey birds

Male Wheatear (digiscope)

This evening at Maxey (Etton side, c.6.30-7.30pm), there were:
Wheatear, 3,
Yellow Wagtail, 21, gathered in one flock,
White Wagtail, 1,
Sand Martin, c15,
Linnet, c20,
Little Ringed Plover, 14, a new high here this year, I believe - it is becoming a bit crowded with them...
Ringed Plover, 6,
Green Sandpiper, 3,
Common Tern, 1, through west at c 7pm

Little

Adult summer Little Gull (digiscope)
Once more, champion local patcher and bird-finder josh Jones comes up with the goods. This time he found an adult Little Gull with a nearly complete hood (just a bit speckly), but with lovely dark underwings and pristine pale upper wings. It was at Baston & Langtoft pits, on the 'Corner Pit' when I saw it just before 3pm (15.4.07). The dark underwings almost gave the illusion of black in the wing for a mo while it was at rest, but when it rose up off the water, to carry on catching insects with the Black-headed Gulls, it showed its fully-adult wings.

Yellow wag hare

Once the fog had cleared a bit this morning I took a quick hour-long dash to Maxey (15.4.07), mainly to see if the male Wheatear from yesterday was willing to pose for photos. So I parked up by the Maxey cut and risked a trip around the upper bank. The risk did not pay off, though as there was no visible Wheatear and I was spotted by Thomas Baskerville, the evil dog owned by the couple who live in the bungalow overlooking the pit. Thomas duly barked and attacked me, and despite my dancing and plentiful advice to leave me alone, took a big gnash at my ankle, ripping a five-inch tear in my trousers, but thankfully just missing the flesh. I am sometimes tempted to arm myself with one of the plentiful cobbles which litter the area...
Once he was back on his lead, I continued birding. Best stuff was the rather dippy young hare which I've seen before and this gorgeous male Yellow Wagtail. It's always a shock when you see them in spring quite how yellow they really are! It was happy wading through the flies at the water's edge.

Brown Hare (digiscope)


Male Yellow Wagtail (digiscope)

Garden Peacock

There were loads of butterflies around this super-warm 14.4.07, particularly nymphalids and Brimstones. I also had my first Speckled Wood of the year (at Old Sulehay). As an aside, I also added Wheatear, Common Sandpiper, Yellow Wagtail (all three at Maxey) and Lesser Whitethroat (Morborne Hill) today.
In our garden, this Peacock was enjoying the lovely blossom of one of our apple trees this evening (DSLR).

Gory detail

This Golden Plover was at Maxey pits on 7.4.07. Clearly freshly killed, judging by the bright red blood and still intact organs (I'm not much cop at anatomy: lungs? heart?), the wings, breast bone and a couple of organs were all that remained – plus a bit of gravel stuck to the gore. It was on top of one of the five-foot high hay bales by the 'hard-stand' on the road to Etton.
There were no feathers scattered about, so I presume the bird was killed and plucked and largely devoured somewhere else (a gravelly place I would suggest, Watson), then moved up to the bale to finish orf, before the killer was disturbed.
Sparrowhawks come through here regularly, but then a Peregrine has also been seen a few times (i've seen one or more around the pit a few times myself in the last couple of years). I like to think a Peregrine was the killer, and it somehow seems romantic that a Peregrine was sat a few feet away from where I do my regular patch-watching...

[By the way, the hand belongs to local birder Chris Lines.]

Insects

Bee Fly (DSLR)

Comma (DSLR)
Both at Deeping Lakes, 9.4.07.

Lead replacement petrol

Little Ringed Plover, rudely disturbed (accientally I hasten to add) on potential breeding site, PBC area, 9.4.07 (digiscope).

Z-front

I got a few shots of the Whitefront at Deeping Lakes a couple of days ago (7.4.07). These included one showing its right side and, by the pattern of black on the belly, that it is definitely (as expected) one of the four that were at Langtoft West end Pit back in December. Check out The Natural Stone's pic to see what I mean (it is the right hand Whitefront in the shot).
Why Z-front? Because surely it is the last time I show a shot of this Y-front...

Good Friday

Don't forget, dear visitor, every photo can be clicked on for a much larger version...


Northern Golden Plovers (DSLR)
- like Grey Plovers with white armpits.

It was a lovely day today (6.4.07), and with the family on tour this week, I took the opportunity to scrounge some local birding time with my friends Ray and Will Bowell (see Will's Adlib Blog doubtless for more pics). We started early at Old Sulehay, and though we didn't see any Lesser Spodepeckers, there were still plenty of delightfully noisy Yaffles and a few Great Spots, Nu-thatches and Treeclepeepers to keep us happy. There was also a singing Chiffchaff and a singing Blackcap.

Northern Golden Plovers (digiscope)
On to Maxey, where there were now:
Little Ringed Plover, 12 (6 pairs),
Ringed Plover, 6, (at least),
Green Sandpiper, 4, (at least),
Redhsnk, 5 (at least)
Golden Plover, c2,000,
Jack Snipe, 1,
Goldeneye, 1,
Sand Martin, 1 over

Jack Snipe (DSLR)

Northern Golden Plovers come to land (DSLR)

We then headed down to the Nene Washes. The Avocet population has spiralled to 8 (four pairs) on Field 12, and there are still some 1,000-1500 Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits gathering. Breeding waders are getting on with it (despite a certain amount of promising [for birders] flooding) and a Water Pipit gave brief flight views and called. Also of note were a Ruff and a Reeve and two winter Dunlins. We also had my first white butterflies of the year, here and at Sulehay (though now I think about it I had one on 5.4.07 near my homw in Peterborough).

Female Black-tailed Godwit (digiscope)

Male Black-tailed Godwit (digiscope)

Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits (DSLR).
Click it, it looks strangely like a painting to me...

... Oh, and we were not entirely welcomed by one of the nesting Mute Swan pairs...

Mute Swan (DSLR)

Finally, we hit Blackbush to search for Wheateaters and perhaps Grey Partridges and certainly Corn Buntings. There were none of the first, none of the latter, but a pair of Grey Partridges were just close enough to photograph.


Grey Partridges from the car window (DSLR)

Another Bee Fly

Easton Hornstocks, 2.4.07, Nikon Coolpix 4500

Another tiger

Blue

While dipping the Bedfordshire Red-rumped Swallow yesterday, in a doomed late evening chase, our anguish was enhanced by news of a Blue Fulmar turning up in Peterborough. When I got home and checked the pic on the Internet, the bird looked in pretty grim condition. My dreams last nght were mixed visions of sick Fulmars bouncing into the banks of the lake at Eye Green LNR and of glorious Fulmars sweeping around on stiff wings.
I was up at first light and at Eye Green at 6.15am (1.4.07). It took about a minute before I noticed something Fulmar-grey, like a flannel on the edge of the lake. It was it, wings out face down in the water - a gonner.
I really wanted to take it and keep it and give it to the Peterborough Museum. But we don't even have a freezer. Instead I fished it out and tried to photograph it. The fact that its eye was open was a little unnerving, and the 'lice' around its throat didn't exactly endear themselves to me – were they from the water or the bird's own parasites?
A sad end, following the destinies of the two other Fulmars I know to have occurred in the PBC area in the last few years (one was found dead at Holme Fen, and one was moribund at Langtoft).
My first Blue Fulmar made me sad.