Wednesday 20 October 2010

Venus Pools & Polemere

Myself and Brian Pollard took a trip over the boarder to Shropshire today, to a couple of nature reserves that I hadn't visited before. The weather was great and the birds were equal to that. Around 40 species were seen, and highlights were:-

Venus Pools
1 drake Mandarin, 10+ Teal, 20+ Shoveler, 2 Wigeon, 200+ Greylags, 7 Great Crested Grebes, 1 Lillte Grebe, 200+ Black-headed Gulls, 2 Common Gulls, 3 Lesser Black-backed gulls, a handful of each Reed Bunting and Yellowhammer, 1 male Peregrine, 1 Male Goshawk, 2+ Sparrowhawks, 2 Grey Herons, 30+ Lapwings and 10+ Snipe.





Polemore
A family of 5 Whooper Swans, 1 redhead Goosander, 2 Little Grebes, 2 Wigeons, 10+ Teal, 75+ Greylags, 50+ Canada Geese and 1 Barnacle Goose.

Tuesday 19 October 2010

Little Gems.......

A couple of very showy Goldcrests made my lunch a very enjoyable one today.




Sunday 17 October 2010

Birding in Cyprus

Myself and Char went on a very long overdue holiday to Cyprus last week, although it was a none birding holiday, I was quietly confident that I would manage a few decent birds, and hopefully some that I had never seen before!


Birding started off a little quiet around the hotel and surrounding area, with only just White and Yellow Wagtails being the highlight of the first day! However the second day way a lot better when a walk along the coastal path produced a Crested Lark, Alpine Swift this stunning juvenile Red-backed shrike, things were on the up!





Day 3 was a none eventful day on the birding front, but day 4 produced some more gems!! We had hired a car, and were on our way to the capital for some site seeing, when on the way I spotted a small lagoon on the side of the motorway, this proved to be an absolute wader magnet! Species I.D'd included Teminck's Stint, Kentish and Little Ringed Plover, Black-winged Stilt Spur-winged Plover (pictured below) and a few commoner ones too. Garganey, Hooded Crow and a Greater Flamingo were also present there. A Chukar was seen on a eveing walk not to far from the hotel.








Day 5, as we still had the car we took a trip up to the Troodos Mountains - the highest mountains on the island. I was hoping to see some large birds of prey soaring on the thermals, but sadly none were seen. However the forests were full of little birds including several Common Crossbills and Short-toed Treecreepers and a couple of Cyprus Wheatears, amongst several commoner species. Half a dozen or so Bee-eaters were seen on the way home.





Day 6 was a relaxing day, but a early morning walk along the beach produced 3 Zitting Cisticolas and a juvenile Red-rumped Swallow among a handful of Swallows and Sand Martins.





By the end of our holiday I had managed to I.D 40 species of bird including 7 world lifers!!

Lapland 'Hunting'........

I was given the very privileged opportunity yesterday evening to try and catch some Lapland Buntings. In recent weeks there has been a huge influx of these winter visitors to many coastal areas of Britain, in some cases more than 10 times the usual number of birds!! The plan was to 'drag net' (a technique used by ringers to catch ground roosting birds) the fields where the birds had been seen in the daytime, in the hope that some of them were still there roosting. After about an hour of methodically walking up and down the field trying to cover as mush of it as we possibly could, we had successfully caught 3 Lapland Buntings and 7 Skylarks (another ground roosting bird). Adding to the other 4 Lapland Buntings that Tony Cross and Kelvin Jones had caught on another 2 trips, meant that a total of 7 Lapland Buntings had been trapped and ringed at this one site!! Amazing really, as only 17 of these birds have been ringed in Britain over the last 4 years!!

Tuesday 6 April 2010

April fools....?

A trip with Tony (to the coast again), but this time to to some bird watching as well as ringing!! One of the first birds we heard/saw was a Cuckoo!!

We couldn't believe it, it was the beginning April and one had already turned up, so much for not arriving until May. Maybe this was going to be a great start to a great days birding? It was, the next bird we saw was a Great Grey Shrike, this was going to be some day! After spending a few hours at the Cross Inn Forest we headed to the coast, where our good fortune continued, several Wheatears were present on the cliff tops, one of which was trapped and ringed, but star of the show here was a Black Redstart which wasn't shy at all (there was a very showy Dunnock too).
We then headed up the coast where our first stop was Aberaeron, we were greeted by a very smart flock of Golden Plovers (and a lone Turnstone).

A bit further up the coast we ringed a brood of Dippers, then got to our next location - Llanrhystud. Here we saw good numbers of White Wagtails a handful of Wheatears and second summer Med Gull. On the way home we decided to go the mountain route where the star bird for this leg of the journey was a Merlin which decided to have a pop at a Wheatear right in front of the car!!

Saturday 3 April 2010

Off to the coast again....!

A quick visit to the coast (Aberystwyth) again today, with the main target to try and get some more pics of the Purple Sandpipers, before they head off north for breeding!



I was in luck a couple of them were feeding on the rocks below the old college, so with a bit of careful tip toeintg over the wet rocks I managed a couple of pics before they went and fed a bit furter out!

This Shag in the harbour was also a nice find too!


Also got to ring my first grey herons today, what ugly little b****rs!!

Friday 2 April 2010

White-fronted Geese @ Dolydd Hafren

Many years ago White-fronted Geese used to build up to as many as 400 strong in the fields along the monts/shrops boarder, nowadays due to increased farming there natural wintering habitats have all but disappeared along with the Geese, so to hear that 3 had turned at one of my now 'local' site, I was keen to go and see them!

When I got to the reserve, the 3 birds were showing distantly but well enough to clearly see what they were.



Other birds of interest included, 4 Little Ringed Plovers, 2 Redshank, 2 Common Sandpipers, 1 Lapwing, 2 Oystercatchers, 40+ Curlew, 13 Goosanders, 2 Cormorants, 80+ Fieldfares, and a handful of each Swallow and Sand Martin.