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| Bunkers at Harrington Airfield |
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| Convenient chair |
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| view from chair. |
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| Peregrine |
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| well good photo of a SEO |
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| Spot the shortie! |
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| well good photo of a SEO #2 |
Showing posts with label Peregrine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peregrine. Show all posts
Monday, 31 October 2011
Few words, some images
Friday, 21 October 2011
two failures.....
Yep thats right, two attempts at seeing the Great Grey Shrike(s) at Harrington Airfield and two failures.
First was on Tuesday in the hope of completing a hat trick of lifers in as many days. The shrike had been seen about an hour previous to my arrival but none of the other birders that I encountered (there were a fair few) had seen it. I did see a Merlin over the entrance upon my arrival and the large flock of Golden Plover (I counted 427) provided entertainment whenever they were put up into the air.
I walked the line of bunkers (visible in the distance of the top image) a few times in the end but got bored with seeing no Shrikes so I gave in and stopped at Blueberry farm (cheers Paul!), Maidwell for a lookie on the way back. Didn't see any SEO but a Peregrine at least gave me something to look at when it drifted over gaining height and then proceeded to stoop at what must have been 6,000 miles per hour. At least. Unfortunately lost it as it broke the skyline so I didn't manage to see the conclusion of the stoop but it was still the best that happened whilst I was there.
And now we move onto today.....
After the news yesterday that two Shrikes had been seen together at the airfield after a paucity of sightings since Tuesday I headed back over to Harrington before uni this morning. I got there at about 10.30 (damned snooze button....) which gave me a nice window of two hours to hopefully pick up one of the birds before I had to go and learn about conservation and stuff. My beginning tactic today involved pulling over at the Memorial layby in the hope of (albeit distantly) picking up one of the birds in flight because although you can walk through the scrub patch and thus be close to the birds the density of the habitat means you can rarely see more than twenty yards in front of you. And so I chose the lay-by in the hope of a better overall view of Shrike land. This cunning plan seemed cunning too. A birder had seen one, maybe two birds from that very spot not twenty minutes beforehand......
"I'm in here", I thought.
No I wasn't. At least they'd turned off the wind machine today.
Within minutes of arrival a Short Eared Owl was quartering up and down through the scrub patch however which admittedly did cheer me up as recently I've been trying for my first this Autumn and shorties are one of, if not my favourite birds.
About a hour into my allotted time I became paranoid that the Shrike were still in the scrub patch around the bunkers but were on the wrong side of it to be seen from the lay-by so I decided to give in with Plan A and go to plan B - walk the bunkers. So I did, and saw precisely zero shrike. But a guy walking about 20 yards infront of me accidently put up the Short Eared Owl from the long grass close to the path and it gave brilliant views - even better for the guy infront of me, he could have reached out and touched it! And then I ran out of time. So had to leave. Doesn't seem like they've been sighted since though....a crack of dawn jobbie seems the most realistic prospect of seeing them at this point. We'll see how that goes!
First was on Tuesday in the hope of completing a hat trick of lifers in as many days. The shrike had been seen about an hour previous to my arrival but none of the other birders that I encountered (there were a fair few) had seen it. I did see a Merlin over the entrance upon my arrival and the large flock of Golden Plover (I counted 427) provided entertainment whenever they were put up into the air.
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| Harrington on a nice calm day (not really, it was horrendously windy) |
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| Plovers innit. |
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| Blueberry farm - quality SEO habbo |
And now we move onto today.....
After the news yesterday that two Shrikes had been seen together at the airfield after a paucity of sightings since Tuesday I headed back over to Harrington before uni this morning. I got there at about 10.30 (damned snooze button....) which gave me a nice window of two hours to hopefully pick up one of the birds before I had to go and learn about conservation and stuff. My beginning tactic today involved pulling over at the Memorial layby in the hope of (albeit distantly) picking up one of the birds in flight because although you can walk through the scrub patch and thus be close to the birds the density of the habitat means you can rarely see more than twenty yards in front of you. And so I chose the lay-by in the hope of a better overall view of Shrike land. This cunning plan seemed cunning too. A birder had seen one, maybe two birds from that very spot not twenty minutes beforehand......
"I'm in here", I thought.
No I wasn't. At least they'd turned off the wind machine today.
Within minutes of arrival a Short Eared Owl was quartering up and down through the scrub patch however which admittedly did cheer me up as recently I've been trying for my first this Autumn and shorties are one of, if not my favourite birds.
About a hour into my allotted time I became paranoid that the Shrike were still in the scrub patch around the bunkers but were on the wrong side of it to be seen from the lay-by so I decided to give in with Plan A and go to plan B - walk the bunkers. So I did, and saw precisely zero shrike. But a guy walking about 20 yards infront of me accidently put up the Short Eared Owl from the long grass close to the path and it gave brilliant views - even better for the guy infront of me, he could have reached out and touched it! And then I ran out of time. So had to leave. Doesn't seem like they've been sighted since though....a crack of dawn jobbie seems the most realistic prospect of seeing them at this point. We'll see how that goes!
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| Shrikeland |
Sunday, 16 October 2011
modest lifer!
Being relatively new to birding has several downsides (i.e. general incompetence) but also has one major upside - loads of ticks! I don't need to leg it across half the country because some stranded siberian waif has turned up in a grotty bush in Northumberland, I can happily bodge my way around local sites ticking the shit out of everything! Patch ticks, site ticks, year ticks, life ticks, might have ticked it before but im gunna tick it anyway ticks - they're fucking everywhere!
Today I wasn't very happy with life - instead of a potential life tick in the form of the WRS at Rutland I was subjected to driving to Sheffield to pick up Amy and then Manchester for some bemusing underground tour of Manchester that my darling twin sister had arranged (the ginger bitch).
Now the conurbations of Sheffield and Manchester don't offer much opportunity for lifers and the fact that I didn't take any optics with me also boded for a pretty birdless day but I wasn't to be denied!
So what was the life tick? Two Red Grouse thats what! Only fleeting glimpses were attained from the A57 running up Snake Pass towards Glossop - a superbly named pass!
I know, I know Red Grouse isn't much to sing and dance about and some of you may well be wondering how on earth I'd managed to reach the age of 25 without ever seeing one but the answer for that lies in where I live. Leicester. Leicester has no grouses and neither does Northamptonshire, Warwickshire or Norfolk (where I have done nearly all of my birding to date). So thats why i'd never seen one before. So fuck you! If you are looking for ammo poke fun at the fact that currently I've never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever seen a Skua! Not a single one. Of any species. Ever. Now that is laughable!
Other stuff seen from the car today (one day I will die in a mangled fireball because im incapable of keeping my eyes on the road) included Peregrine, several Raven and two Jay
Today I wasn't very happy with life - instead of a potential life tick in the form of the WRS at Rutland I was subjected to driving to Sheffield to pick up Amy and then Manchester for some bemusing underground tour of Manchester that my darling twin sister had arranged (the ginger bitch).
Now the conurbations of Sheffield and Manchester don't offer much opportunity for lifers and the fact that I didn't take any optics with me also boded for a pretty birdless day but I wasn't to be denied!
So what was the life tick? Two Red Grouse thats what! Only fleeting glimpses were attained from the A57 running up Snake Pass towards Glossop - a superbly named pass!
I know, I know Red Grouse isn't much to sing and dance about and some of you may well be wondering how on earth I'd managed to reach the age of 25 without ever seeing one but the answer for that lies in where I live. Leicester. Leicester has no grouses and neither does Northamptonshire, Warwickshire or Norfolk (where I have done nearly all of my birding to date). So thats why i'd never seen one before. So fuck you! If you are looking for ammo poke fun at the fact that currently I've never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever seen a Skua! Not a single one. Of any species. Ever. Now that is laughable!
Other stuff seen from the car today (one day I will die in a mangled fireball because im incapable of keeping my eyes on the road) included Peregrine, several Raven and two Jay
Sunday, 2 October 2011
Update
Apologies for the lack of posts over the last week or so, many non-bird related things have got in the way such as turning 25 and a 3 day jaunt down to Bristol this weekend for my mate Rory's stag do. The fellow stags are a great bunch of lads but quite frankly couldn't give a toss about birdwatching (whilst hovercraft racing yesterday I pointed out a red kite being mobbed by corvids and was widely ridiculed) so not much birding was done but I did manage a couple of hours of "skywatching" from the lofty position of the 15th floor of the fine establishment that is Premier Inn. A couple of Peregrine sightings were rewards for my effort - and by effort I mean lying in bed with a spanking headache staring out of the conveniently positioned window.
In the evening I attempted to go out for an Owl and found a likely looking spot where I might get some good advice on where to go but was sadly mistaken....
Anyway, lets get back to talking about actual birds back in the mighty Leicestershire! By the way did anyone else see the Peregrine sitting in the rafters on the television coverage of the City vs Derby game? I had a season ticket there for a number of seasons and never saw a hint of one! I didn't tend to spend much time looking upwards mind unless it was to ask the almighty why o' why was Trevor Benjamin getting into the team.
About a week ago I had a garden tick in the form of a Willow Warbler that admittedly had me convinced it was a chiffchaff (as it was nearing the end of September and is generally quite late for a willow) but after getting a good shufty at it all signs pointed at Willow and although my warbler identification skills are severly lacking im competent with the commoner species and it just felt like one rather than a chiff. Not that I would have minded it being a chiff, that would have been a garden tick too! Two Goldcrest were also present in the garden at the same time which were the first actually seen within the confines of the garden this autumn.
The Greenfinch numbers in the garden are at their highest for a number of years at the moment (a flock of around 20-30 birds is regular) which bodes well for Siskin sightings this winter - the drop in Greenfinch numbers in the garden over the last few years has coincided with the number of Siskin sightings also falling. I thought i'd take a few shots of the Greenfinch and found a couple of surprises - in both the images below keen eyed readers will see the adult birds have been ringed, I don't know of any ringing activity in the immediate area of here (except perhaps intermittedly at Narborough Bog) so I wonder where they came from!? Secondly the bird in the second image has extremely dilated pupils - a feature I've never seen and makes me wonder whether the bird has an illness/infection of some kind. I believe the reddish substance around its beak isn't blood, but rather the juice of blackberries.
In terms of my Owling I've not been out as much as I'd like to but managed to meet up with Paul one evening last week where we pootled around visiting a few of the sites that we mutually know about and discussed the favoured subject - owls. In our travels we may have stumbled across a couple of new owl sites for Paul that if confirmed (we only heard the birds, didn't get a visual sighting) will take him over the magic 200 mark in terms of Owl sites that he has found. Considering Leicestershire had about 20 known sites before he commenced his work its fairly safe to say that he's done fucking well so far!
The evening after I nipped out briefly in the hope of a quick birthday owl before I went to the pub and picked up 3 of the juveniles at Pauls star site which were spread out far and wide which sadly suggests the days of sticking your head over a hedge and seeing 4-5 owls all neatly lined up for you to look at are sadly numbered!
No new photos of owls unfortunately (I aim to remedy this this week) but I did manage a photo of the extraordinarily rare and extremely elusive Three Legged Buzzard:
and this shittograph of two juvenile Linnet that I tried my hardest to string into Corn Bunting but thankfully common sense prevailed and the correct (I hope!) identification was achieved.
In the evening I attempted to go out for an Owl and found a likely looking spot where I might get some good advice on where to go but was sadly mistaken....
Anyway, lets get back to talking about actual birds back in the mighty Leicestershire! By the way did anyone else see the Peregrine sitting in the rafters on the television coverage of the City vs Derby game? I had a season ticket there for a number of seasons and never saw a hint of one! I didn't tend to spend much time looking upwards mind unless it was to ask the almighty why o' why was Trevor Benjamin getting into the team.
About a week ago I had a garden tick in the form of a Willow Warbler that admittedly had me convinced it was a chiffchaff (as it was nearing the end of September and is generally quite late for a willow) but after getting a good shufty at it all signs pointed at Willow and although my warbler identification skills are severly lacking im competent with the commoner species and it just felt like one rather than a chiff. Not that I would have minded it being a chiff, that would have been a garden tick too! Two Goldcrest were also present in the garden at the same time which were the first actually seen within the confines of the garden this autumn.
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| garden rare bush scores again! |
In terms of my Owling I've not been out as much as I'd like to but managed to meet up with Paul one evening last week where we pootled around visiting a few of the sites that we mutually know about and discussed the favoured subject - owls. In our travels we may have stumbled across a couple of new owl sites for Paul that if confirmed (we only heard the birds, didn't get a visual sighting) will take him over the magic 200 mark in terms of Owl sites that he has found. Considering Leicestershire had about 20 known sites before he commenced his work its fairly safe to say that he's done fucking well so far!
The evening after I nipped out briefly in the hope of a quick birthday owl before I went to the pub and picked up 3 of the juveniles at Pauls star site which were spread out far and wide which sadly suggests the days of sticking your head over a hedge and seeing 4-5 owls all neatly lined up for you to look at are sadly numbered!
No new photos of owls unfortunately (I aim to remedy this this week) but I did manage a photo of the extraordinarily rare and extremely elusive Three Legged Buzzard:
and this shittograph of two juvenile Linnet that I tried my hardest to string into Corn Bunting but thankfully common sense prevailed and the correct (I hope!) identification was achieved.
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| Corn Linnets |
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