Kestrels

I have spent much time photographing and trying to photograph the kestrels on the common locally.  There is just one pair, though over the winter and early spring,I only saw the female, and saw her often.  She must have got fed up with me trying to take closer photographs though I was careful not to get too close to disturb her.

These are the best photographs I managed to get (so far!)

Otmoor: turtle doves and harriers

I have neglected to post in here for a few months, but a rainy day, and so no gardening work, is giving me the chance to catch up, going  back to early June when I finally managed to get to the Otmoor RSPB reserve near Oxford.  And it is indeed a beautiful reserve.  I went with my friend Jenny and we were lucky enough to see turtle doves, now increasingly rare visitors to this country.  I had never seen or heard them before and hearing their purring was quite a special experience.  From time tho time we would hear birds purring as we walked around the reserve, but this bird was the only one we had a good look at whist it was foraging for grain.

There have also been marsh harriers on the reserve and we saw two, but not closely:

It was a very lovely, hot day, with so much bird activity.  I did not keep a list, but remember seeing heron, common terns, and hearing many warblers and cuckoos.  We also saw many reed buntings.  These also live on our local common, although there aren't so many, but here we saw a great deal.  Here are some photos: the last one of the tern is not quite in focus but I have included it because of the enormous fish in its beak, which it finally swallowed after much effort!

Birdwatching near Caernarfon

I haven't managed to keep up the list of what I have seen on this blog. but am, however keeping a list, and trying to take photographs too, when I can.  I finally got a better photograph of the female kestrel on the common.  She is nearly always around, but it's not always possible to get close enough for a picture.

I quite like this one though, where she is in the hawthorn tree - a favourite perch.  But this last weekend I was able to see what birds were around in quite a different habitat.  As I had booked to go to the St David's festival in Caernarfon, I thought I would also try to do some birdwatching there and contacted Gareth Jones who runs Birds of Snowdonia and booked a 'tour'.  Brought up in the area, Gareth's first language is Welsh - so that meant we could do the birdwatching in Welsh, an added bonus!.

So on Friday we arranged to meet in Caernarfon and he took me to various locations not too far from the town itself.  As I recall, this is the list of the birds we saw:

Green winged teal
Teal
Oyster catchers
Buzzard
Raven
Jackdaw
Crow
Dipper
Dunlin
Redshank
Greenshank
Goldcrest
Jay
Magpie
Curlew
Golden plover
Lapwing
Chaffinch
Great northern diver
Goosander
Rock pippit
Ringed plover
Stonechat
Merlin
Tree creeper
Wren
House sparrow
Coal tit
Blue tit
Great tit
Long tailed tit
Thrush
Mistlethrush
Dunnock
Robin
Blackbird
Starling
Nuthatch
Black headed gull
Herring gull
Greater black backed gull
Lesser black backed gull
Brent geese
Shelduck
Moorhen
Mute Swan
Mallard
Goldeneye
Great crested grebe
Little grebe
Shag
Cornorant
Pintail

If I haven't put duplicates in this looks like 53 species to me, which is amazing.  I didn't just want to see as many different birds as possible though, and you'll see that many of these are quite common birds.  I wanted to go to locations where I had been as a child, and where I still go when in Caernarfon, such as the Foryd, with someone who is an expert in birding. And I certainly wasn't disappointed.  We saw birds that I have seen before around the town and coastline, but never get to see locally, such as curlew and redshank and turnstone (though that was a bit elusive) and geese we never get here as they are

coastal (the brent geese).  But we also saw a green winged teal, which are American birds and are different from our own native teal in having the white stripe on their flank running upright as in the photo rather than along the wing as in the 'ordinary' teal below:

Not very good photos - they weren't terribly obliging, but they are certainly very pretty birds - both kinds!  Other 'firsts' for me were the divers on the straits, but they weren't terribly close to the shore and of course they are in their winter rather than their breeding plumage.  Another duck I had never seen before was the pintail - very handsome - dabbling around in some pools on the shore, but not near enough to take a photo.  We also visited a field with a very large flock of golden plover, with some lapwing among them.  I have only seen golden plover in their breeding plumage before: these looked very different, but sparkled when they took off in flight - which they did from time to time.

I was also very pleased to see so many curlews, but was told that these are not (mainly) our curlews but Scandinavian or other European visitors.

Another bird that I was excited about seeing was the merlin: I love birds of prey and had never seen one of these before, but I have to say that it was a long way away, perched on a post.  

So I think I learnt a lot about which birds might be seen where.  I didn't try to take photos on the whole, as many were far away.  I would certainly like to go back and try to photograph the dipper.  I love dippers and of course we definitely don't get them around here as they like fast streams.  But we saw two more or less within the town itself, but of course, as is always the way, by the time I'd got the camera out and zoomed the lens, they had moved away!  So one last photo of a bird that is often seen in an aggressive pose, the herring gull, but this pair seem to be peacefully dozing.

More January sightings

I'm not finding it very easy to keep the blog up, having said I would revive it this year!  The main reason is that it competes with the blog I write in Welsh, which also serves to allow me to practice and keep up with my Welsh writing.

However, we did go to Wicken Fen at the beginning of the year (2nd January) and I hoped I would see the Hen Harriers that roost there coming in at the end of the day, but no luck.  It was a beautiful clear day, with much sun and blue skies, but also a very busy day, full of families with children having a great time - and hence noisy.  The hen harriers are not very tolerant of human activity apparently and so perhaps roosted somewhere else.  We did see marsh harriers however, though we didn't really have good views.

So I've listed below what I have seen this year, in no particular order, according to my lists - don't always remember to note them down.  It is amazing how many species of birds there are around to see once you look and make a note - otherwise sightings are forgotten fairly quickly!  And having now fixed the problem I had with my camera when using the shutter priority or the aperture priority I continue to hope that I might get some better photos of the local kestrels or even the kites!

Snipe
Chiff-chaff
Water rail
herring gull
common gull
lesser black backed gull
widgeon
shoveler
golden-eye
great crested crebe
little grebe
cormorant
robin
black-cap
long-tailed tit
blue tit
great tit
chaffinch
blackbird
mute swan
tufted duck
gadwall
mallard
coal tit
songthrush
Marsh Harrier
Reed bunting
greenfinch
house sparrow
goldfinch
kestrel
Meadow pipit
Buzzard
Oyster catcher
Red Kite
curlew
woodpigeon

New Year's Day sightings

I've not been posting to this blog for some time - and have been reporting some of my nature sightings and musings in my Welsh blog, Aildysgu, but thought I should try to revive this blog as one of my aims for 2015 is to be a bit more consistent in recording what I see around me.

2015 got off to a somewhat grey and murky start.  The temperature had risen after a few very frosty but sunny days with the temperature never rising much about freezing, giving lovely views of the local common:

This morning, by contrast, was warmer but also windier and I joined the local RSPB group for their annual New Year's Day walk at Willen Lake.

We started watching from the shores of the lake where we saw a number of different ducks including  wigeon, gadwall, tufted such and a couple of golden eye, as well as great crested grebes and dabchicks we went off to the hide to see what we could see from there.  One of the birds spotted from the hide was a chiff-chaff and I was surprised to learn that the chiff-chaff sometimes over-winters in the UK.  We had an excellent view of quite a pretty brown bird that was constantly moving around, so little chance to photograph it. We were ready to leave the hide when someone spotted a water rail.  Although it had retreated into the reeds, it re-appeared and we had a good view as it quickly ran from one patch or reeds to another.  I have never seen a water rail before and did not know what an attractive bird they are.  There was more to come - two or three snipe were also in the reeds and although the view of the birds in the reeds were limited, we had quite good views of two of the birds flying off with their typical zig-zag pattern.  It's a long time since I have seen a snipe - the pattern particularly around their eyes is very striking.