Slimbridge 5/1/14

Hi,
Sorry about the wait. Went to Slimbridge to see the little stints that have settled in for at least a week back then. My Mum, Dad and I first went to the Holden Tower to see the flooded dumbles. There wasn't much luck on the rarities side of it though. however, the sheer number of common birds ( dunlin, lapwing, golden plover)was amazing. After spending an hour watching this spectacle I journeyed onto the next hide, the Zeiss hide. People had been reporting 4 avocets 1 ad. And 3 juveniles again we didn't find such a thing.

The "Last Hope" was the Kingfisher hide we saw no unusual birds on the bird feeders however my Dad looked over at the front of the hide and said "Is that a water rail". I walked over found the bird and was certainly a water rail, finally a nice bird to look at. Anyway nice to see one.

Also I'm going to have new feature in which I'll make a collage using an app called pic collage to put at the end of one of my posts again one day these photos will be mine!!!

What i was thinking of doing

I do go to the same old same old places as you can probably tell! But the places I go to have history. Like kenidjack that hosted the Yellow-throated Vireo the first and only for the Western Palearctic.

One day hopefully there'll be treasure waiting there, and I'll have a camera waiting for it! Thanks for understanding where I'm coming from.

Biff

St Ives friday 27th december 2013

It was grannies birthday so she decided that going to St Ives would be a good idea. To be honest I wasn't that excited and thought that there'd be nothing to look at except tourists.

Oh and how wrong was I we started by walking beside the sea near the public toilets. I found around 20 turnstones and a few oystercatchers flying across the ocean.

After walking for a while we stopped off at a restaurant by the sea to have lunch and a nice sit down. I had a burger that was delicious then wanted to go outside. Mum, Dad and I went out for a bit of fresh air and lucky it was a bit hot in there as 3 purple sandpipers a new species for me were waiting out there. it was such a coincidence that a few minutes earlier I was talking about how much I wanted to see one. While looking around I spotted a very light coloured shag maybe just an unusually bright individual but still a bit odd.

A few hours later I went into a shop and found a beautiful avocet sculpture that i reluctantly bought. Another short while after that we stumbled across a flock or around 150 waders that were circulating some rocks. I thought that they were some ringed plovers by the size and habitat.

A horrible day that turned into a fantastic one with another new species added to my list

Wiki purple sandpiper

Book Recommendation

yesterday I received my long awaited gift, the collins bird guide 2nd edition.

I had seen this books on many other occasions with some other birders using it. I am not disappointed the book doesn't consist just of the norm it also has the rarities and vagrants.

It has most of the different plumages and subspecies, I really recommend getting the book as I can tell that it's going to become a legendary book in the birding world.

Anyway if you're wandering about what bird book is the best, definitely get the collins bird guide the price is brilliant and the illustrations are sublime

amazon collins bird guide

The brisons 29th december

Hi,

Only a quick post, I went down cot valley again and failed to see anything though but thought to look out at the brisons just in case there were a few birds on it or flying by and amazingly found a sooty shearwater. I was very excited and told everyone about it.

Sorry about the short post but still very happy about it

Christmas Eve birding! Cot valley & kenidjack valley

Hi guys had a really nice day birding today with a nice variety with a few highlights.

I started the birding say off by walking down cot valley. I didn't here any birds or see any when clambering down the hill so my hopes were low. I started off by walking down the middle of the valley but then heard many different birds on the left and side so thought I'd investigate...

The first few birds that i spotted were great tits and blue tits. next came the goldfinches and the chaffinches. All were very nice and fairly tame! After about 10 minutes a small warbler came from the bushes, the head had the distinctive goldcrest it was a goldcrest. A lovely bird to find in winter as it's so puffed up. But after while they seemed to get bored and flew down to the trees in the middle of valley, and as I was still curious about what other birds tagged along. I found a fairly large finch with a brown white-spotted back at first I thought it was a juvenile goldfinch but knew that they wouldn't be in that plumage at this time of year so didn't have any idea!

I then walked down to the bottom of the valley and saw absolutely nothing else. So I slowly but surely with the wind blowing against me walked up the side of the valley to my beloved kenidjack valley. When about to walk into the valley I saw a beautiful female peregrine fly straight in front of me.

After another 10 minutes of walking I arrived at the donkey paddock and had a nice stroke also fed the donkey some grass. After that I had walked to the middle of the valley and found yet another beauty, the bullfinch only one female but still lovely to know that there's a stable population. I carried on walking up the valley sadly didn't encounter any other nice surprises but still enjoyed it!