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!