We only had four of us for the birding group visit to RSPB Leighton Moss on 9th April 2019 but we had a most fantastic day with good weather and lots of birds including a number of year ticks and a life tick as well.
We saw on Birdguides that the Blythe’s Reed Warbler thathas been around at Hope Carr Nature Reserve had been showing early in the day on the perimiter fence at the sewage works at the end of Hope Carr Terrace. It has been around for a while and we tried to see it the previous Tuesday…
We had a spare day available to us and thought we would go up to the Wirrall for a slightly high tide to see if we could get any raptors. High tide wasn’t until around 1pm however, so we thought we would take a punt at looking for a juvenile Rose-coloured Starling (or Rosy Starling)…
On the day of our departure from Mull I thought I’d have one last look for an Iceland Gull that had been reported as loafing around the harbour. I had looked a couple of times before but a bit casually. We had left our fabulous cottage with enough time to spare to quickly park in…
Our American holiday this year took us to San Diego, Big Island, Maui and San Francisco. San Diego In San Diego we found a rather splendid site at Imperial Beach, San Diego Bay. We actually ran into a few birders who were looking for a (locally rare) Flamingo. They gave us some pointers and…
The BirdGuides reporting service had been listing a juvenile Purple Heron as being seen regularly from the Grisedale hide at RSPB Leighton Moss so we drove up there hoping it was still there. When we got to the hide photographers were obviously hogging the prime positions and not moving and this was exascerbated by…
Our Scotland break this year took in visits to all the various branches of my family and covered the Lothians, Fife, Aberdeenshire, the highlands and the islands. Over the period we got ninety species including two”life ticks” and ten other “year ticks” Our trip is described in full below.
Titchwell We started out the day at Titchwell arriving there at 9am – an hour before they opened. We headed straight down to the first hide on the path that leads to the Parrinder hide. On our way down we could hear Sedge and Reed Warblers, Chiffchaff, Cetti’s Warblers and assorted other woodland birds. The…
We went for a fantastic three-week holiday taking in a three-night stop at San Francisco either side of a week on Maui and a week on Big Island. I didn’t record every sighting as it wasn’t really a birding trip, as such, and I wanted to record lots of other things too. I did, however…
The sad loss of a very good friend took us to Portugal for her funeral. We were in Lagos between 15th – 19th January. The unhappiness of the occasion was soothed a little by the odd couple of hours birding that I managed to fit it. It was a bit of relief from the intense…
