Ruddy hell !!!

27/10/09
undisclosed location somewhere close to great bridge
he's found a mate!

the male ruddy duck has a mate,a totally shite day for photography but still nice to see the ruddy with a mate.it was an odd discovery,walking along the raised path along the tame and saw some pochard, then a tufted duck surfaced in front of them and the a smaller duck next to it,i raised my bins and,it was a female ruddy duck(prob's 1 of only 5 ive seen).a little later and was joined by andy again(who was photographing a pochard further down the path) and he captured a few shots of the pair together,anyway not much else to note,the pochards were back with 14 counted,4 very flighty teal were bomming around the lake every time we got within spotting distance of them(1m,3f).a check of the chemical pool(oops you know where it is now) and the mound,a mipit flew over as well as 52 redwing,but not much else,a scan throught the gulls produced nothing of note,there were 5 lapwings and a possible 'intermidius' race lesser black back(nowhere near certain enough to claim it though)
that really concludes my trip to ?????????

MB

NO CAMERA= BEST BIRDS

24/10/09
The way isnt it,for one poxy weekend you lose your camera and bloody everythings shows,and not only shows-but shows well.
the day started at lickhill for yet more vis-migging and a count of the canada flock,122 canadians today,about 80 redwings went over and only 1 skylark,a poor start to any day.
well it soon livened up.


bewdley
i guess you all know tufted ducks are ment to be on lakes dont you,well i had 2 male(eclipse) on the river in bewdley town centre,what. thats mad,tufties on a river.i tried some very bad phone shots but,trust me hear.the ducks are only pixel sized dots,even though they were close.


i cant remember what happed at earlswood(too busy trying to get the work done so we can get to upton early)


well we did get to upton early
so over to the east hide to look at some snipe's.
on the way a female green woodpecker shown well in the paddock.
9 snipe were plodding around but non were bouncing around so no jack snipe:(
i knew of a pink footed goose that was there and i imdiatly went in to find it,2 greylag were in the quite large flock of canadas but i couldent find it....oh wait up.

it was hideing behind a much larger canada,the pink footed goose was and upton tick(127) and also a year tick(god knows),after a bit longer watching lapwings and scanning the reedbed,and with the sun now at a painful level shining into the hide we left for the west hide.now it gets exiting.after looking to get another view of the pink foot from another angle it was still in the same basic area,and a male gadwall was sitting peacefully on the water,a fine looking duck gadwalls are,a quick(and not very acurate) count of the shovelers produced only 21 birds,there was 11 pochards floating around,with some red headed males.the kingfishers again gave great views on the sticks,22 curlew flew towards the flashes after feeding on the A38 field,a few water rail were briefly poping out occasionally but not giving great views,the cetti's warblers were singing again(and what a powerful song it is),

but just as i was giving up hope on the bittern,i got a quite quiet call from my dad, "ive got the bittern"

those words to make you stop dead in you tracks, and for the next minuite or so it led me a merry dance to just get a view of it,but then it lifted its head,out of some reeds,only about 10 metres from the hide, i will tell you now,that is 'the best' views of a bittern i have ever got, a head shot of a bittern.if i had my camera i would be showing you a great video of the bitterns head poking out the reeds but instead all you have is this:


highlights are:
1 BITTERN
1 PINK FOOTED GOOSE
1 gadwall
22 curlew
1 green wood
MB

The suprise's this 'hobby' can bring

18/10/09
this is so long ago now i dont know how the day went,but here goes:

had a walk to the vismig point to, well do vismigging. the canada flock was up to a even higher year peak of 252 birds.thats only 26 off the all time lickhill record(well a grounded flock anyway).
the redwings started going over and in the time i was out had 148 over and 23 fieldfare,15 skylark flew over but only 1 meadow pipit.a plesant suprise when a bullfinch flew over calling going north.
but the highlight of the migging sesion was a HOBBY,i personally have never seen one this late,proberbly a good 2/3 weeks after my lateist date.but before this year i didnt get hobbys with any regularity.
this bird(by the looks of it a juv) bommed it south at medium hight over the field,but as the field is open and quite big i was able to scope the bird into just a small spot.
highlights are:
1 HOBBY
252 canada
15 skylark
148 redwing
2 grey wagtail
2 coal tit(in conifers)
1 bullfinch
3 cormorant
23 fieldfare
3 pied wag
MB

gulls quiz

GULLS,you either love them or hate them.

for the sceond try at a quiz i am going to use a harder subject.rather than a few tringa sandpipers,i am going the full way. here are 8 images of different gulls,all have been seen in the british iles.

just a a bit of caution on this side though-all photos are copyright to the owners,this blog has no rights to the pictures,i simply used them because they were the best i could find.if one of images are yours and you dont want them to feature on the quiz just give me a yell.

anyway here they are:

gull 1

gull 2:

gull 3:

gull 4:(front bird)

gull 5:

gull 6:

gull 7:

gull 8:

good luck everybody:)

still driving me up the rails

17/10/09
upton warren moors pool
again dipped out on the bittern but loads of water rails showing calling etc,a lot of time was spent looking at the sky and noted 16 meadow pipit,41 redwing,3 song thrush and 5 pied wags and 2 skylark,a very unusual moment was when a reed warbler belted out in sub-song in front of the water rail hide and according to one of the upton guru's,it is the latest record. 9 greylag geeese were in the canada flock.
this flock of greylags has been hanging around for a bit now hasent it,i first saw the flock on 5/09/09.i wonder whether it is the family flock raised here just one has left the flock.

you can tell it cant you, i'm struggerling about things to wright.

well a kingfisher landed on the perch in the little light.a cormorant was on the north moors and a green woodpecker on the causeway:

MB

who like's gulls. I DO,I DO. next post is a quiz about gulls!!