A really good afternoon. At least 100 martins and swallows around the water treatment works attracted a hunting hobby. This was seen at close range as it didn't see me below the bankside tree canopy and flew directly over at about 15 meters. Buzzard and sparrowhawk seen just after this. The other high...
Thinking of going to Marton Mere near Blackpool in the next couple of days as Long Eared Owls are reported as being present. Does anyone know the place?, i.e. where am I likely to find the owls?. Any help/advice gratefully received.
Cheers Ian
Yellow-browed Warbler off Green Avenue, Astley. Bird is moving in a small tit flock around the first field west of the small park at the end of Marklands Road and has been very vocal.
This didn't really belong on the Black Redstart thread which is already getting full of other stuff (mea culpa) so I thought I'd start a new thread for other regular steetwise stuff. Looking up for Redstarts there are quite a lot of breeding birds on our city centre rooftops as well as the stars. Today I...
I visited the new RSPB reserve St Aidans today near Swillington in Yorkshire. Today was the opening day and we decided to arrive early so we would not have to struggle parking. Arriving at 9.20am there were just 4-5 cars parked and there appeared more staff and volunteers than visitors. Although with...
I'm on the verge of buying a new phone and I'm leaning towards the Google Pixel 10 Pro. Does anybody use this phone and how is it for phonescoping? I used to have a Google Pixel and I really liked it, but then it got broken and I bought a cheaper Samsung which is not so good. If not the Google Pixel 10 Pro, then d...
Both of these great sites are vastly underwatched. I went for an hour this afternoon and found a few good sightings, including a couple of year listers: Grasshopper warbler (another heard) Sedge warbler Whitethroat-6 Blackcap (male) Swallow-10 Grey partridge-2 Kestrel Skylark-15 Reed bunting...
Dunkirk Wood Common Buzzard (mobbed by three Carrion Crows) Great Spotted Woodpecker (heard only) Nuthatch (heard only) Song Thrush (singing) 6 Long Tailed Tit Also good numbers of Blue and Great Tits A female Sparrowhawk quickly put an end to the quarrelling of six House Sparrows on the housing es...
Took a short trip from Cheshire into the Clocaenog Forest today to have a search for Tree Pipits. After trying some previously good sites (on hearsay from other birders) I found them all to be grown up from when they were good for this species. Conifers have this annoying habit of quick growth (), I lost...
Early morning stroll in Phillips Park Still frosty Seen One Mere Clough Tawney Owl 2 GS Woodpecker several chiff chaffs LT tit tree creeper Near Clifton aqueduct/lagoon lower woods 3 Goosander female Greenshank three black caps gadwall kingfisher -- Edited by Ian McKerchar on Monday 28th of March...
17th April 6.45am - 9.30am Usual stuff. Of interest were: Plex Moss - Station Road 10 whimbrel (with curlew in usual field near junction with Plex Moss Lane) rt hen harrier (attempted to catch a partridge - either missed or failed to hold, too far away to tell) Downholland Moss - Moss Lane 2 ravens (one l...
Common Redstart and Willow Warbler by Errwood Reservoir but strangely no Common Sandpiper yet. No luck with Ring Ouzel at Danebower but plenty of Wheatear. Also bizzarely no sign of Red Grouse. Loads of motorbikes - more like the TT up here.
exploratory venture,bad morning for it though, 1 kestrel 2 reed bunting 20 longtailed tits 4 greenfinch should have slept in cheers geoff -- Edited by Ian McKerchar on Sunday 14th of June 2020 05:38:22 PM
2 Hours early afternoon today 2 Garganey 50+ Teal 400+ Black-tailed Godwits MIKE -- Edited by Ian McKerchar on Wednesday 22nd of August 2012 10:06:52 PM
On the way to work this morning at c.9am a Grey Wagtail flew over the A559 Marston Lane/Hall Lane near to the junction with B5391Church Street/Wincham Lane, not a million miles away from Neumann's and Ashton's Flashes as well as other water bodies and floods so worth keeping an eye open. Albeit the bir...
16/6/2007 Oystercatcher - 4 G C Grebe - 6 Grey Wagtail - Adult feeding 1 Juv G S Woodpecker Pheasant 2 young Fox's. Some of you might remember this site for the drake Long Tailed Duck a few years back that stayed for about a month, its certainly an interesting area with potential, abit underwatched but no...
Having spent the winter completing surveys around Barnby Dun I am now able to get to others sites with the light being longer, so hope to post more sightings from my visits from now on, from South Yorkshire in general. It is interesting to see some of the wintering birds reducing in numbers, but some lik...
Selling my back up scope , rarely used these days.
Comes with case (body & objective only, eyepiece cover lost), Leicaxlens cap.
Great condition.
The zoom eyepiece works fine, but does have the old Leica issue of the "fine" focus wheel being smooth but the "coarse" focus wheel being a tad s...
Peregrine late morning perched in top of a hedge off Parkside Rd. Different bird to the one I saw at HGF earlier this morning Also female Pintail on Newton Lake (Willow Park) late afternoon and 28 Linnets on Parkside Rd -- Edited by Mike Baron at 17:33, 2008-11-08
A lepidopteran bonanza this p.m. with some real prizes (if you like that sort of thing). At least 6 green hairstreaks were on the heather/bilberry moorland near the cross, but more excitingly there were the first 2 painted ladies of the year, the first red admiral of the year (extremely scarce in the...
19 nests in trees near to the centre of Hollingworth as I passed along the A628 today. Also Jackdaws nesting in the chimney of the Junction Inn. -- Edited by Ian McKerchar on Monday 7th of February 2011 09:04:44 AM
Did anyone else notice a big movement of Swallows today? I arrived at work in horrid weather and as I was opening up glanced out of the shop window to see dozens of Swallows, mostly juveniles, flying very low in the rain over the cattle field. They stayed around, seemingly trying to feed, for about an hou...
I always tell myself that this time of year anything can turn up anywhere. This whinchat was a nice reminder. Spotted it perched on United Utilities' fence as I strolled down the disused freight line. Couldn't get any closer without scaring it off by barging through a couple of bramble patches.
