Well, November seems to have passed me by without seeing a single bird of any note while much of the UK seemed to be awash with rare Swift‘s. I have barely managed to get out due to work commitments and a general low ebb in my birding enthusiasm, this comes to me once in a […]
Author: Simon Colenutt
I began birdwatching at the age of nine when living on the Isle of Wight. After obtaining a copy of the Isle of Wight Bird Report from 1976 I realised that Manx Shearwater, Arctic Skua, Pomarine Skua and Black Tern were regularly seen at St.Catherine's Point, only five miles from my home village of Chale Green. To a nine year old these birds were near mythical and so I just had to go and try to see them. Little did I know that these birds were seasonal and after a long winter of seeing nothing I eventually started to bump into other birdwatchers as March drew to a close. It was then that Dave Hunnybun, Dave Wooldridge, Paul Castle, Peter Gandy and Audrey Wilkinson introduced me to the art of seawatching and the joys of bird migration, I have not looked back since.
Grey Catbird – Cornwall – 18th-23rd October
Sarah, Tobias and I had a few days booked at our cottage between St.Ives and Zennor and with the Grey Catbird, first found on 15th October, still present come 18th I was anxious to get on the road to try and see the bird. Sarah washeading down at around 11:00 with Tobias but I couldn’t […]
6th and 13th August – Pennington Marsh
A free Saturday morning on 6th August and I couldn’t resist the pull of Pennington Marsh but a few beers the night before meant a slightly later start so I wasn’t in the car park at Lower Pennington Lane until 08:00 by which time the dog walking hordes had descended. I wandered a short way […]
North-west China (Xinjiang) – 6th May (Day 16)
Today was on a knife edge, and stress levels in the group were high, we had two endemic birds to see and only around three hours in which to see them – it could go well or horribly wrong. If the latter then the only bird I would have gained from the Luntain part of […]
Cotswold Weekend – 9th and 10th June
We spent the weekend at our cottage in Cowley in the Cotswolds with our good friends Trevor and Julie Codlin. Trevor and I ran the moth trap on both Friday and Saturday night recording a good range of spring and early summer species. On Sunday we headed out looking for butterflies. First we visited Daneway […]
Pennington Marsh and Denny Wood – 8th June
After dropping Tobias at school I spent a short amount of time at Pennington Marsh and Denny Wood. At Pennington it was fairly quiet with most birds settled down to breed. I recorded eight Reed Warbler and six Whitethroat on territory around the loop that extends from Lower Pennington Lane car park to the Jetty […]
South-east China – 27th April (Day 6)
Today was our only scheduled attempt for Chinese Crested Tern on Shanyutan Island to the north or Changle. Chinese Crested Tern is thought to have a total population of fewer than 100 birds. For many years it was only known from a few specimens collected prior to 1937, and a small number of, mainly unconfirmed, […]
Martin Down and Pennington Marsh
The last couple of weeks have been manic at work with some very early starts for breeding bird surveys, late nights reviewing documents and getting the company ready for the new and extremely tedious General Data Protection Regulations which come into force later in May. However, I have managed to get out a little to […]