Wheateater

My first Wheatear of the year was this drake in the usual spot at Maxey pits (as favoured by members of its species for the last three years) on 16.3.08. It had a slightly overlong maxilla, with a hooked tip (just visible on this digiscoped shot).

Wall of Sound

Early morning at Old Sulehay. Sadly no Lesser Spotteds, but still:
Buzzard, 2,
Green Woodpecker, 8, at least, calling
Great Spotted Woodpecker, 5, at least, drumming,
Nuthatch, 3, singing on three different territories,
Treecreeper, uncounted, but lots singing and four seen,
Marsh Tit, 1,
Jay, 3,
Bullfinch, 1, singing softly,

Perhaps the highlight, though, was the cacophony made by scores of Redwings, all singing together in the treetops. A veritable Wall of Sound, as Hair Bear would probably have us believe, reminding one, he would continue, surely, of a murmuration of Starlings.

Later, on my cycle in through Ferry Meadows, I heard my first singing Chiffchaff of the year.

Spring.

Flying Frank x3

Wag

Mallard battle abstract

Would Hokusai have approved?

Sparrowhawks

By the way...

While my mind is full of breeze and I am getting all whimsical, I'd like to speak out loud my love of Joni Mitchell. I fall into the cliche category who like Blue, Court and Spark and Hejira the best, and today on my cycle in I was listening to a few of my faves from the latter.

These were Amelia (three times), Hejira and Refuge of the Roads. I'll spare the cod analysis, but these songs are among my favourites by anyone. So there.

Windy Cycling

In spring 1996, I wrote this 'un:

Laughing as I ride,
fighting the spring wind,
all the way to Nopporo


It felt a bit like this today, but without the Dusky Thrushes, Japanese Pygmy Woodpeckers and Varied Tits at the end of the hard cycle...

Spawn

Our big-sized pond has frog-spawn. I am pleased.

Nene scenes

Looking west toward the brickworks chimneys (note my bike on left)

Whooper Swans
I took an early cycle down the Nene Washes yesterday morning (9.3.08). The place is overloaded with birds – with thousands of Black-tailed Godwits, thousands of Golden Plovers, thousands of Wigeon. Also loads of Snipe appearing all over the place, and bucketloads of Whooper Swans.

Water Pipit
The highlight for me was the number of Water Pipits – I counted at least seven, but they are so shy and flushable, and fly so far when they do flush and there is so much suitable habitat they could be in that it is very hard to get anything like an accurate count.


Sparrowhawk
I also accidentally flushed a male Sparrowhawk which was carrying something distinctly medium-sized – a Snipe perhaps – but I couldn't tie down what the prey was before the hawk carried it off for good.

Pintails

The Washes, looking east

All images with Canon PowerShot A640 (some digiscoped), apart from Pintails with DSLR

In-house pugilism

Eddie (red corner) and his cousin Felix (blue) indulging in appalling behaviour...

Poetry corner

My friend and colleague Matt Merritt has just had his latest collection of poetry published.

It's called Troy Town and I even went as far as forking out my own money to buy it! You can click here or contact Matt at: mattmerritt100@gmail.com to get your own copy (I don't get a cut...)

A piece of him

Digiscoped Bittern (detail)

Still blue

I'm pleased to say that the pair of Blue Tits are still very serious about the nestbox on our garage, viewable from our kitchen window.

Last year's pair hatched some young, then vanished. After they hadn't visited for ages, my daughter Jasmine and I went to investigate. We found a tiny dead one on the path under the nestbox, and when I opened up the lid there was another dead one in the nest. Perhaps they died as a result of the appalling wet summer conditions.

Let's hope this year's brood have more luck.

Bittern sketches

While watching the Beeston Bittern a couple of weeks back (see below), I indulged in a wee spot of sketching, between bouts of digiscoping...
One thing about sketching, I found, is how it makes me look at a bird more carefully and closely than I would otherwise. So, I noticed just where the feathering starts on the upper and lower parts of the bill, the position and shape of the nostril,the extent of the bare skin before the eye and the slight curve in the cutting edges of the bill.

ps I have to thank Katie 'Bogumper' Fuller for getting me this little sketchbook a few years a go (for a quid), and I'd also like to comment how she showed great restraint after visiting this same Bittern, not to blog a pic of herself at the scene labelled 'Bogbumper by Beeston Bump Bogbumper by Bogbumper'.

Bling

Sanders

Reed Bunting Snipe Finch

This Reed Bunting was enjoying the seeds fallen on the flood of the Nene Washes, last year.

Quake not Quake

I've reached the final stages of Black on the PS2. Yes, I'm a pacifist who likes to blow virtual things up and shoot wicked terrorists in a glorious first-person fashion, on me telly. Inevitably, I'm blowing up RPG guys and chucking grenades all over the place and the vibration of the controller is in full overload. It's after midnight, and I really should be in bed; but I can't save the game until the end of the level, and I'm blowed if I'm going through all this again.

Then the low rumble of a truck pulling up outside is followed by the sound of at least 50 cats bouncing up and down on the conservatory roof. And boy are they having a rare old dance. I'm briefly concerned that a shotgun man is trying to get me through the roof, then resolve that the local police helicopter is flying extremely low on its way to raiding the new people nextdoor.

But when I poked my head out of the door, the 'chopper' was gone.

Strangely, though, for one o'clock in the morning, there were Blackbirds and Robins singing all over the place...

I've dibbled around the Pacific rim, spent a short time in New Zealand and lived in Japan for a bit. But, I have previously always been blissfully ignorant of any earthquakes shaking my world, until last night.

Now, when's the next one?

Cattle Egrets

The nation is swamped in them at the moment, and having ticked one off locally for PBC species number 222, I thought I'd indulge in a demi-reminiscithon and post some so-far unposted digiscoped shots of Cattle Egrets from last summer in Mallorca (all at S'Albufera).

Barbet action

This is a digiscoped shot I took a couple of Julys ago in South Africa (when I was invited by Swarovski Optik for a digiscoping trip). And here is the video of the same Black-collared Barbet munching this cactus.

At the waterhole

Long-tailed Tit

With a wee bit of lichen for the nest (DSLR)

Sheep Egret

I was out and about early on Saturday morning (23.2.08), searching for a Firecrest which had been seen a little north of Peterborough, when I got a call. Brian Stone had seen an egret fly past his house (just west of Peterborough) and was "as certain as I can be" that it was a Cattle Egret. Now, there have been loads in the country recently (perhaps 85 in total), but this was still something special for around here.

Brian declared that he was committed to going off to relocate the bird, but, though I made as encouraging noises as I could muster, this was surely wild-goose-in-a-haystack stuff. I had little hope for the poor fellow.

An hour later, though, and Brian was calling again. The bird was in a sheep field near Fotheringhay, Northants (but still in the Peterborough recording area).

So, when I got home, I rudely bundled the entire Weedon family into the car, delivered my daughter to her singing lesson and took Jo and Eddie on a Cattle Egret hunt.

Half an hour later I was hobbling as fast as I could in the direction of a distant Brian Stone. The egret was wandering around the fields getting bullied by butting lambs, and I never really saw it feed (so, it seemed likely to move on, soon). But it was there and very pleasurable on the eye.

A mere handful of hardcore Peterborian birders saw the bird, and another fistful of the Northants brigade. By midday, though, the bird was apparently seen by no-one else and there are one or two local birders left in a deeply-frustrated state of dipping anguish.

At the current invasion rate, though, surely the next Cattle Egret won't be long coming...

Norfolk DSLR-ing

Bittern



Snow Buntings

Turnstone

Common Gull