Hornemann's plus American Buff-Bellied Pipit.....

On Saturday the 15th of December my dad and I travelled up to he Suffolk

Coast in hope of seeing the Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll, a rare bird on the mainland that had been frequenting a stretch of beach at aldeburgh! After minutes of arriving we had good views of the bird feeding on the beach and the sun was just starting to break through! 

This really was a monster bird, a true arctic redpoll unlike the 'coue's'! We stayed on site for roughly 3 hours and the bird was rather flighty moving up and down the beach, my photos are not as good as I hoped and the views certainly wasn't like what people had in the first week but I'm pleased with the shots that I managed.............moving on we headed straight back down south towards home stopping off a the queen mother reservoir for the American buff bellied pipit that had been found! We arrived approximately 2 hours later and started the long walk around QMR! And if you thought nothing could show better than the redpoll you were wrong, this pipit showed stupidly well sometimes just feet away however it was really hard to photograph.
1. It moved so fast
2. The light was terrible
And 3 you were always looking down on it! Only other bird of note there was only a LTD and we then headed for home as the rain hammered down........

24-11-2012 - 6-12-2012 (week off)

From the 24th of November I had 6 days holiday to take so I thought I would take it from the 26th onwards as my birthday was the 25th. To be honest I didn't do much long distance birding I just stayed in and around Hampshire as my girlfriend needed a few lifts to work therefore I visited Needs ore and the New Forest a lot.Ill keep things fairly short and just mention the best birds and try to add the odd photograph!

Needs ore highlights included 1 'Slavonian Grebe', 1 showy 'Great Northern Diver', 'Firecrest', 10 'Common Scoter' and a pure white 'Grey Plover' which was interesting to say the least.




Meanwhile in the New Forest there was no real highlights, it was just nice to photograph some of the woodland birds. 'Marsh Tit', 'Brambling', 'Great tit' etc plus the 'Mandarins' and some 'Goosander', the latter near enough impossible to photograph.




On the 3rd me and Jess after she had finished work quickly drove down to Longham Lakes in Dorset for the 'White Rumped Sandpiper' that had been present for a day or two.
On arrival at around 11:00am the bird showed well but distantly in blustery conditions on the Island in the South lake, that to be fair is all there is to say about that bird and we then headed for the Avon floods where a 'Glossy Ibis' had been seen along with the Usual 'Great White Egret'.
We arrived just after midday and immediately could see the 'Glossy Ibis' feeding actively amongst a few 'Black Tailed Godwits'. Also the 'Great White Egret' was easy enough to pick up albeit distantly. Only other birds of note there were 4 'Green Sandpipers', c30 'Common Snipe' and a 'Kingfisher'.
After this we briefly popped into Blashford Lakes HWT and looked at some nice 'Brambling' and then took a slow drive home..........




Today I had made specific plans with Jess to check out some Rowan trees literally minutes away from my house to look for some 'Waxwings'. I have been visiting over my week off but to no avail so when I recieved a text from Ashley Howe saying '' 11 waxwings, Hedge End at Havendale'' I was immediately pissed off as that is exactly where I was going, however I had a lay in and paid for it!!!
Nevertheless they are stunning birds so we popped down and took a few record shots which I hope to improve over the coming weeks.

We then took a slow drive to Eyeworth pond and again I took the opportunity to photograph the woodland birds once more before I went back to work, 2 'Goosander's' were nice but as normal wary and kept their distance.

Hooded merganser, west suusex

On Friday 9th of November I decided I would go to Pagham Harbour after work to try and see the 1st winter female Hooded Merganser that had been present in a channel near the sluice gate off the north wall area! I arrived just before 3:00pm and 5 minutes later I was stood with 6 assembled birders on the sluice gate watching the merg constantly 'snorkelling' and 'diving' for food.

It was also quite wary and although it did show well you just got the feeling the bird was always on edge and preferred to feed away from the sluice gate further down the channel! I arrived home about 4:30pm.

Seeing as I couldn't get there Saturday nor Sunday I was really pleased to see it as the next time I would be able to visit would be the week after and it could possibly be gone, it's also good to see what must be ' a good candidate' for a wild bird! A lot better than my previous anyway 'radipole bird'!
Record shot below, the light was terrible and it wasn't all that close either.

Grey Phalarope makes my weekend..............

Well on Saturday the 3rd of November the plan was to drive up into Wiltshire and look for the Black Throated Diver that had been present during the week on a small fishing lake a Mouldon Country Park however the bird flew off to the west on Friday so instead me and Jess decided to go down to Eyeworth pond and feed the ducks along with the smaller birds!
We arrived just after midday and was greeted by the usual mallards and the other weird hybrid thingys, there were also a group of Gadwall on the pond but no Mandarins. We ten
Positioned the car and viewed a seeded log where we had Blue, Great, Coal and Marsh tits, other birds feeding were Nuthatch, Chaffinch and House sparrows.
Later on 2 mandarins were found hiding over the back of the pond in some willows and unfortunately they didn't ce close enough for any photographs, with this me and Jess decided to head home taking a scenic drive back through the forest!

On Sunday morning I was up nice and early as I had a football match to play however by 9:30am the match had been cancelled which was no real suprise as the weather overnight was terrible and there was a lot of flooding. Therefore me and Jess popped back home to grab some food and camera equipment and we again set off to Eyeworth Pond seeing as the weather was clearing up nicely.
It was much of the same as yesterday with all the same birds present however today the Mandarins were showing very well taking bread by the car park but only 1 male and 1 female present, last year there was up to 20 birds!

After Eyeworth I was planning on visiting Calshot Marshes to try and find some Black Redstarts however after speaking this over with Jess she wanted to go to Needs Ore NR! Last time I said no we will go somewhere else Needs Ore had a 'Spectacled Warbler' and as you can imagine it pissed me right off!
Therefore I agreed and thought I had better pay it a flying visit. Driving down the access track didn't look promising, the fields were flooded and I thought that there was going to be nothing of note other than maybe some wildfowl!
We got near the farm and I noticed a lot of curlews in the field opposite, I started to scan and found amongst them (2) Greenshanks, (2) Redshanks, a few Black tailed Godwits and a single Bar Wit amongst them! And then I noticed a pale bird feeding on a flooded section of the field and it was moving very quickly and straight away knew that I had found a 'Grey Phalarope'! Brilliant.............not the rarest bird in the world but I have never found a Phalarope before and they have been quite scarce in Hampshire this year so this was my first, also my purple patch continues at this place after finding a Long Billed Dowitcher earlier in the year along with a Glossy Ibis and being on site when the Red breasted goose was found! Record shot below as it was quite distant and the light was fading!

Desert wheatear, Worthing,

On Friday the 26th of October I couldn't resist the 'Desert wheatear' any longer that had been pleasing many on the beach at Worthing seafront. I had work all morning but as soon as 2pm come around I was off straight down the M27, it took just over 1 hour which was a little longer than I had hoped as the light wasn't particularly good and I had a party at 7pm.

On arrival the bird was showing brilliantly right in front of the assembled crowd perched on a post. I joined them and started firing away at this superb bird. To cut a long story short I stayed on-site for approx 2 hours and enjoyed crippling views of this bird sometimes down to just a few feet and I left at 5pm once the rain had set in and the light began to fade, all in all it was fantastic bird and cannot wait till I see the next one which is hopefully just a showy but in better weather.
Here is some of my pictures from that afternoon, luckily I saw the bird as It disappeared overnight much to my disappointment as the weather was lovely the next day and I was on standby for another visit.

Spanish sparrow and more........

Back when the 'Spanish Sparrow' took up residence in Hampshire I visited the site more than 10 times trying to get a decent shot and it seemed like my time had ran out as a lot of the 'House Sparrows' were departing getting ready to nest however one sunny Sunday afternoon I was passing by and thought I'd give him another go seeing as the light was really good! I parked up and there was no one to be seen therefore making the job of finding him harder, or so I thought.

5 minutes later I could hear this sparrow call one which I haven't heard before, it was quite distinctive from the house sparrow calls so I could locate the area quite easily! BANG! There it was sitting 10ft in front of me singing, the light was perfect however the only problem was it always stayed a little hidden tho I did get some good shots when it briefly popped out onto the edge of the hedge row. I spent over 2 hours watching this bird all in my own and it was fast becoming more and more  into summer plumage which was also a bonus! Below are a few shots of the sparrow along with some other birds I managed to see and photograph over the summer...........

Night-jarring!!!

No I haven't just been out looking for 'Nightjar's' but I thought I'd share my experiences/photos from earlier this year with you.

During the summer if that's what you could call it my aim was to find some Nightjar's during the day roosting. You can hear them all night 'churring' when you drive through the new forest so one night I took a drive out into the forest and listened to many birds in different areas and tried to find the best place for them, the next day I decided to take a walk at this place and after a few hours no birds were seen although I did hear one churr briefly from within the gorse.

The next week my mate Ashley had come back from University and still needed 'Nightjar' for his year list so we took another walk around where I had heard the bird from the previous week. It was quiet....................until all of a sudden me and Ashley came face to face with a lovely male 'Nightjar' on a bare gorse branch roosting in the sun!!!!

We quickly got our cameras out and started firing off shots, after several minutes we left the bird to roost in peace. On our way back round to the car we saw some more individuals and once you had the eye for them you could see them quite easily, in total we must have had 4-5 birds with 2 of them being males,we then left rather happy with smug grins on our faces and headed on home!!!!!

Saturday 20th October - Sunday 21st October

Welcome to my new site, being really busy with work and going back to college I haven't really had time to update my old website therefore I thought I would try and keep a blog about my latest outings which of late haven't been much to be honest, I will also try and upload some of my best images from the trips that I do.

Having said that this weekend has been rather good, I started at 09:00 Saturday morning where me and my girlfriend Jess went for the Red Backed Shrike that had been present in Wiltshire for the past two weeks.
Ideally I wanted some good photo's as I knew this bird had been rather obliging and on arrival we wasn't disappointed.
As we walked up the hill and out on to Salisbury Plain we could immediately see the bird albeit through the thick fog which wasn't ideal. Thankfully the fog quickly started to rise and the bird soon started to work its way through the nearby bushes catching Beetles, Wasp's, Moth's, Caterpillar's and a hornet.
After about 2 hours the weather had cleared and the sun started to shine and so did the Shrike, It literally fed and perched up just feet from us sometimes too close too focus. I spent the rest of the day alongside 'Carl Day' photographing this beautiful bird at close range, I drove home at 15:30 stopping off at 'Stone Henge' to please the girlfriend.........typically it was closed!!

Late Saturday evening a report of a 'Siberian Stonechat'  at Birling Gap, East Sussex was too hard to resist so at 08:00 this morning me and 'Ashley Howe' set off to the east arriving on-site just after 09:30 immediately picking up the bird sat on a near-by fence and the best thing was we didn't even have to get out of the car. (Life tick for us both!)
We stayed for another 2 hours or so admiring this beautiful bird and rattling off a few images when it fed from the nearest fence-line. It didn't take long before me and Ashley decided it would be rude not to pay the juv 'Sabine's Gull' that had just been seen in Brighton, so 30 minutes later we arrived to find it just west of the  'dis-used pier' on the sea.
20 minutes or so passed until Ashley decided to go get some shots as it was approaching the beach and I was on lookout duty for parking attendants as we didn't pay, As soon as Ashley got down to the seafront the bird flew up over his head and landed right in front of the assembled birders. It wasn't long till Ashley joined us and we fired away at this superb looking gull.

After this we quickly got back on the road and visited the Avon floods briefly to get Ashley the 'Great White Egret' that I had the month before. On arrival the bird was distant however it flew straight towards us and landed at close range. Other birds seen before we left were 1 Green Sandpiper, Kingfisher and a Ruff in amongst the Lapwings.
Just to add to a brilliant days birdwatching a ring-tail 'Hen Harrier' flew over the A31 towards Burley at 17:30 on our way home!