Heron on a house

Mum spotted a Grey Heron perched on a rooftop opposite our house at 18:30 today. Nothing much I know, but birds are thin on the ground at the moment. Despite what looked like perfect conditions today no migrants in Seaford, no singing Chiffchaffs, no overflying Meadow Pipits and Skylarks. I heard a chucking Redwing walking to school today, perhaps a migrant as the winter visitors disappeared several weeks ago. However, with Wheatear, Chiffchaff and various other migrants starting to appear in decent numbers in Sussex now, I'm fairly hopeful an excursion over the weekend may be rewarding for migration.

I'm making a habit of using these old pictures simply to illustrate
my blog now it seems. This Grey Heron isn't the one I saw on the rooftop
(it was 6.30 pm and the light was appalling for photography), it was one
that played Peek-a-boo in a ditch in the Cuckmere last April.

27 Oct 2010-up into real Scotland!

On October 27th, we drove up to Kirriemuir, where we stayed the night with my Uncle Danny, having a day in the Highlands (next post, prbably to be put on tomorra) before heading back down to Edinburgh the following afternoon...

We stopped off first at Fannyside Lochs, near Falkirk. Here were 160 TAIGA BEAN GEESE, in a faraway field with sheep onLuckenburn Farm. This, aside from being great birds, was the first time we've ever parked the car in one county (Clackmannanshire) and seen a bird in another (Falkirk)! The nearest place to the Bean Geese where we could park the car was in fact 20 yards over the border! A few flyover Redpoll and Siskin were also seen/heard. This was only the second time I've seen geese of this race, the previous time being in Feb 2008 in Suffolk.



Taiga Bean Geese, 27 Oct 2010, very distant photo!

The geese were my 190th birds of the year.

We later stopped off at Vane Farm RSPB. Here I had great views of 30 Whooper Swans, my 191st bird of the year. There were also about 300 each of Wigeon and Teal, several Tufted Duck, a few Pochard, 8 Goldeneye and a single male Pintail showing well on the water, and a flock of 80 Pink-footed Geese flying over the Loch fairly distantly, though still showing well until they dropped down on a marsh.



try and find the two Goldeneye and two Pochard in this photo!
The Whooper is a bit more obvious...

a lonely little Black-headed Gull

Whooper Swans, Mallards and a Tufted Duck

Grey Heron in the marsh

Driving along the small B-Roads to Kirriemuir, Fieldfares were in all the fields in brilliant numbers, and a few more flocks of Pink-footed Goose flew over, probably abut 300 overall.

around Edinburgh, 25-26 Oct

After a day out birding on the coast east of Edinburgh on the 24th, the nest few days were somewhat quieter, though with a great bird thrown in...

on 25 Oct, we spent part of the day in the Pentland Hills. First stop, with all the family, was Threpmuir Reservoir, where I can list all the species of note on one hand. 50+ Siskin, 4 Bullfinch and a few Goldcrest. The reservoir held only four species of bird, two of which were gulls.

Next stop was Leith Water. Here we had one particular bird in mind. We almost had a false alarm when a Grey Wagtail was seen on the stream, and then, we picked it up by its song, a scratchy tune oddly reminiscent of a Reed Warbler. This DIPPER stayed on show for 10 minutes, perched on rocks and doing the 'dipping' it is so famed for. Luckily, my camera has a video function, so I caught it 'in the action'

We also saw a few Redwings and Goldcrests along here, and a single juvenile Grey Heron

P.S unless you want my annoying voice ruining the peaceful tranquility of this video, I suggest turning your volume down right this instant...  Or sometime before you play the video. You know. Whatever...

26 Oct was a wet and drizzly day. We visited Straition Pond, a little reserve on the outskirts of Edinbugh. The fact we saw more pieces of litter than birds tells you what kind of 'reserve' this is. A few Redwing was as good as it got. Sometimes, you just gotta love the city birding...

14 Feb 2010-Bittern and some other stuff

I didn't expect much birding today on mother's day, but sometimes you can get really surprised!

I started at the Cuckmere, with some of the pictures I took shown below.

In the Cuckmere Valley between Charleston Reedbed and Litlington, totals of 60 Wigeon, 30 Teal, 7 Redshank, 5 Snipe, 2 Shelduck, and a possible Yellow-legged Gull with the gull flocks, a record shot of which is shown below.

This gull was seen with a small flock of Common and Black-headed Gulls just south of Litlington. Dad and I decided it was probably a juv Herring Gull, but it didn't look quite right, and may have been a Yellow-legged. Comments welcome on it. If it was a Yellow-legged, it wold be the second good gull around here this March, after the Glaucous Gull seen by Steve Dawson at the start of March

After this, and at the slight annoyance of mum, dad got a phone call from Nick Pope, who had found a Bittern at Deans Farm Pond (actually a flooded field) with some reeds around the edges. As ridiculous as it sounded, when we got there, the bird was showing very well. I got a few record shots, but the evening light, the bitterns camoflage and my shivering hand in the cold evening all made a steady and focused photgraph a less than easy task! My best effort is shown below.

Note* A better photo of the Bittern can be found on Matt Eade's blog

12 feb 2010- sparrowhawk, heron etc.

Around Seaford today, a Grey Heron was another good record from school, flying low over the playing fields mobbed by Black-headed Gulls, it briefly awoke me from my usual vegetatvive state in school! A Sparrowhawk over the block was, suprisingly, the first one I have seen this February, while a few Chaffinches were unbelievably the first I have seen in a week, as was a singing Song Thrush near the A259. Also worth mentioning, the Crane that has been present for the past few weeks in the Ouse was seen my my jammy sod of a father as he took the train into work today!!