First of three! Table images!

Hello all, this will be the first of three posts summing up this winters antics in a photographic manner. What I mean is up until now I'd been too lazy to process and upload all of the images I've taken this winter but I've just had a massive sort-out and can finally get some published!

As already indicated this is the first part of three, starting with some photos from the feeding station I've set up in our workyard. Apologies for the quality of some of the images but all have been shot through a dirty/steamy/wet caravan window!

Feeding table Mk1 - with two Jay on it!

Feeding table Mk2 - feeder addition

Feeding table Mk3 - triple feeders! - note the 8 Reed Bunts on the table!

 

Long awaited table-tick for me - Marsh Tit!

Nuthatch!

Brambling

Meet the Dirty Blue Tit - he/she enjoys venturing down one of our tractors exhaust pipes!

Coal Tit

Robin

Particularly resplendant Blue Tit

Pidge

Jackdaws

Reed Bunt

 In recent weeks the table list has gone past 20, with Long Tailed Tit and Greater-spotted Woodpecker being the latest species to fall for the charms of my table!

Nuthatch

As I havent been out and seen anything interesting or taken any images for the past few days I've finally got round to posting the final installment of images from my trips down to the feeders near Brinklow 6 weeks or so ago and personally I think I've saved the best til last. Nuthatch have always been a favourite "garden" bird of mine, probably because in the area I've grown up in there is little in the way of mature deciduous woodland - and thus few Nuthatch. I think our garden records have just a single record of Nuthatch in 21 years. And so, its always been a bit "special" to see one, especially as they're one of the more charismatic and aesthetically pleasing small bird species in this country.

Small Stuff

After Uni yesterday I did my usual Monday afternoon pastime of watching Short eared Owls but unlike last week when it was sunny and the owls came close this week it wasn't sunny and the owls didnt come close. As a result I didn't get any images of note, this being the best new image I could get:

Still, it'll only be about a month now until they're gone again from this area so I'm determined to enjoy seeing these birds whilst it lasts, it really has been a cracking winter for them.

So this morning I had planned to go back armed with a full day in which to get some better images - a final flourish if you will. Unfortunately it was dull, misty and most importantly freezing cold this morning and I baulked at the prospect of spending a whole day outside as I reasoned I wouldnt get any images anyway.....that and the fact im a wimp. So a change of tactics were in order and instead I hopped over the border into Warwickshire to a feeding station I know near Brinklow. Well the term feeding station is a bit rich, its simply a few trays fixed to a few trees in a car park next to a canal. This description is deceiving however as the car park and canal are next to a sizeable chunk of mature (im not sure if its old enough to be termed "ancient" or not) woodland and im not sure if the station is maintained or regularly replenished but if you bring along some seed and nuts from home you can attract all sorts of species. So I did just that and a few minutes after filling the trays all sorts of goodies were turning up to feed just a few feet away from the car which I was sat in with the heaters on, lovely it was!

Coal Tit

Coal Tit

Marsh Tit

Marsh Tit

Nuthatch

"Britains ancient woodlands need YOU!

Nuthatch

Chaffinch

Moorhen

Blackbird

Brown Rat

Squirl

In addition to the photographed beasties a pack of Long tailed Tits were around although I bungled all my attempts at photographing them, stuff like Dunnock, Robins, Blue Tits and Great Tits were also present, a Greater Spotted Woodpecker never quite plucked up enough courage to visit the feeders and a Jay flashed past once. Not a bad mornings birding all from the comfy warmness of the car!

12th Sept. No seabirds and an owl.

Yesterday afternoon I did a small tour of a few of the reservoirs in Leicestershire on the hunt for seabirds again. First stop was Thornton which looked like this:

No seabirds were present however and the best of it came from 3 Little Grebe that were quite rightly avoiding the swarms of bread-crazed fake ducks that inhabit Thornton. Didn't bother with circumventing the reservoir as frankly I couldn't be arsed so I moved onto the dam at Cropston reservoir which was.........fucking windy to say the least.

Cropston being windy

So windy infact that using a telescope became almost impossible and stable viewing could only be achieved using bins. Not there was anything particularly fancy to see anyway, a juv. Arctic Tern brightened things up nicely however as I had been considering dropping into Watermead on the way home to see the bird that has been lingering there recently.

The third and last reservoir I visited yesterday was Swithland which was also poor (also scuppered by the fact that I chose to view it from a spot looking directly into the sun) but did throw up single Greenshank and Common Sandpiper and also a couple of Nuthatch in the trees surrounding the res. I do suspect more waders were present than the two I saw but as I said, I picked about the worst place to view from. I was going to visit Groby pool as I was in the area on the hunt for the Redstart that has been knocking around there recently but I decided to bail as such a plan involved walking - far too much effort!

Yesterday evening I went out for an owl again with the intention of staking out the likely Tawny Owl roost site - no sightings were made during the last hour of light. Previous to this I had visited a Little Owl site where I was reasonably confident of a sighting - in periods of high wind the owls can be quite easy to locate aslong as you know the sheltered spots where they like to hide from the worst of it. So sticking my head over a hedge to see if the Owls were present I was rather surprised to find no owls but one Paul Riddle instead who was erecting some perching posts for future use by the owls. After a chinwag over the hedge with Paul who gripped me off immensely recounting how he'd just had 5 owls in that very spot (and got to within about 10 feet of them)  about ten minutes previous I headed on and soon after picked up one of his displaced juveniles perched above a knot in a roadside tree. No photo's unfortunately as I didnt bother taking the scope out last night (shows how confident I was about my Tawny stakeout!).

21st and 22nd August. Wild egret chase

I have developed a new nemesis over the last couple of days. And that nemesis is the Cattle Egret, Bubulcus ibis. One turned up at Eyebrook at a similar time to this last year and I missed it, so when one had been reported on Saturday I made my way over early on Sunday afternoon to try and see the beast. Made a rookie manoeuvre from the off in wearing the trademark hoodie - it was absolutely roasting. Now a normal person could have fixed this by simply removing the offending item of clothing but no such luck for me, In my wisdom I hadn't worn a shirt underneath and rather than expose my doughy physique to the world I cooked. Slowly.  Upon arriving it was patently obvious that the bird wasn't in the area it had been reported, and over the next two hours it became even clearer that the bird wasn't present anywhere, with it last being seen fucking off high Northwards. Bugger. A few decent birdies such as 7 Ruff, 2 Greenshank and half a dozen juvenile Yellow Wagtail (there were two Whinchat seen with the wagtails earlier in the day, but I didn't pick them out) did little to compensate. So I went home to watch the cricket in the end. And then saw that the Cattle Egret had returned to Eyebrook. What a bastard. So plans were made for Monday. Oh and I saw a Weasel at Great Easton whilst I was roaming around looking for cows.

22nd August
And so I found myself at the viewing area near the island bright and early at 6am this morning. Sightings of Little Owl, Muntjac deer and Bat sp. en route to the site made for a good start, made all the more better by a group of 3, closely followed by a group of 2 Egrets flying straight over my head within seconds of arrival and landing in the area the Cattle Egret had been seen last the night before. All 5 turned out to be Little Egret. The dirty rotters. A pair of Hobby briefly caused what may have been classed as pleasure but it was mainly annoyance with the unpredicatable nature (and downright indecency) of the Egret. Even worse my Ruff count peaked at 6 birds today and I only saw 1 Greenshank. A Green Sandpiper was added to the day list here though.
Being at Eyebrook early in the morning is always enjoyable but after a couple of hours I got bored with not seeing the Egret and became confident that i'd looked pretty damn thoroughly for it and it was almost definitely not present. And so I made my way over to Ketton quarry with the intention of satisfying the Llama and finding a real, live adder for my Leicestershire reptile list. Although its not an ideal time of year for adder I was reasonably confident of a sighting as Ketton is adder-tastic and it was a lovely warm, sunny day when I arrived on site shortly before 9am - theoretically perfect for a basking snake. In practice however no snakes were seen. Not one. I was on site for the best part of 3 hours, enjoying the sunshine and the cacophany of woodland bird song belting out from the surronding area. I did find a skin though. This one was about 2 feet long.

The visit wasn't totally devoid of reptiles however, with many many Common Lizards in evidence. Trying to get a close look (or a photo for that matter) of these little devils is a challenge though as they rarely sit still! I did see one enormous individual though, he/she was huge!


Spot the lizard


Other good stuff seen whilst at Ketton included two flyover Raven, Jay, Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Lesser Whitethroat, the two commoner Woodpeckers and what were my best ever views of a Stoat. It made its way down the side of the "ampitheatre", stalked and then chased a couple of rabbits and then promptly sat on a flat rock and stared at me (I was only about 15 feet away) for what seemed like an age although it was probably only a few seconds. As soon as I moved (in this case to attempt a photo) though it shifted sharpish and wasn't seen again!

Eventually, I left Ketton at around midday and after a quick scan of Eyebrook on the way, went home and watched England be well good at cricket. Oh, and the Egret turned up at Burley Fishponds this evening. The turd.

Edit: Oh and a juv. Blackcap was sighted in the garden rare bush on Sunday. Bonanza.

County tick, Garden tick and boyish wonder

A nice triple pronged post here today ;

County tickage - I dragged Amy out for a walk on monday afternoon with the intention of finding and exploring the Charnwood lodge/Timberwood hills area as i'd never got round to going there before. But, as had happened before, I got confused and ended up walking a completely different area.....well the info board claimed it was still Charnwood lodge but it was a different area to where I'd aimed for - this was the area opposite the Forest Rock pub (which incidently has been renovated since I last went and is now rather swish, hooded birders hoodie received critical stares) in Whitwick. Nevertheless Hooded birder and his intrepid partner went for a jolly around this bit anyway as my Grandparents often used to take me and my sister up here for a walk with Pudding the dog. The walk was very nice and nostalgic but was completely devoid of birdlife. In the two hours(ish) that I was there only Woodpigeon, Magpie, Crow, Swallow and Nuthatch (heard only!) found its way into my notebook for the day. So how on earth did I manage to bag a county tick?? It wasn't a bird that why, it was a beautiful Common Lizard that stormed its way onto my Leicestershire reptile list, sitting proudly alongside Grass snake and a dead Adder I saw once.

Garden tickage - This record was pleasing for three reasons. 1) It was a bird this time. 2) Having lived in this house since I was 4 years old garden ticks don't happen very often. 3) I managed to take a photo of it this time. Ok using the word photo is stretching the definition of this word to the very limit but I couldn't care less! It was a documented garden tick which was the main thing as the old bag can be dismissive of garden tickage, I know to this day she doesn't believe my flyover Raven claim!
Anyway back to the bird, it was a Whitethroat (juvenile) and it was bloody brilliant! Hooded birder was sat in the garden smoking narcotics and reading Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix when he became aware of a little brown chap flitting about in the garden rare bush. The garden rare bush does exactly what it says on the tin - if it's garden rare, it'll be in the garden rare bush. I'll have to get back to you on the species of bush buts its a good bush. Has yellow flowers on it sometimes. Anyway, said bird was flitting around in the garden rare bush and was decent enough to not fly off whilst I made risky amounts of disturbance trying to get inside to get the bins. And so, juvenile Whitethroat in the bag. Here it is;

No apolgies for the shit image here, this was 21 years in the making!

On reflection I should have seen it coming having read recently about this being a Whitethroat year and this being the time of year where juvenile warblers turn up in gardens but predictably I didn't. Still, shouldnt complain, only the second warbler (after several blackcap records over the years) on the garden list. Should post that soon.

Boyish wonder - I was cocking about on the blogger page, figuring out what everything did and whatnot when I discovered the stats page. Everybody likes a good stat. Especially birders with the tremendous amount of lists we each compile yearly. So you can imagine how the stats page was received. And this is where the boyish wonder comes in. This blog is still in its infancy (1 month and 5 days to be precise) but during that time 4 Americans, 2 Germans, 1 Dane and an Indonesian have had the misfortune pleasure of reading this blog. Hooded birder is international now, oh yes.