With the recent cold blast the Fieldfares have decided they like the menu on offer in my garden to the point where they have taken over. The resident Blackbird and Song Thrush are chased off as the Fieldfare defends his new short term territory whilst he ignores all the other birds. The male Blackcap has […]
Tag: Blackbird
Do Partridges Really Live in Pear Trees?
The lucky recipient in the classic Christmas carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas” got 23 birds over the course of the holiday season. Hopefully they didn’t live in a studio apartment. In the yuletide spirit, we’re taking a closer look at the birds immortalized in the English folk song, first published around 1780. Seven Swans […]
Fledgling Tawny Owls
I have and will be so busy with guiding (20 hour long trip to Hedmark and Oppland yesterday and tomorrow and Sunday in the Beitostølen area) that I haven’t had time for blogging so here is one I prepared earlier. I have lots to tell from yesterdays trip and expect to have much from the […]
Suffolk Warblers
We parked up at Lakenheath this morning at 6am and took the long walk out to Joist Fen. On arrival there was another guy listening and looking for DB’S Marsh Warbler which we heard as we approached and saw straight away sitting up belting out it’s full repertoire which seemed to include a little Nightingale […]
A Lost Opportunity At Hammonasset
For a handful of days after mid April 2017 Hammonasset Beach State Park was host to a rare species of bird for its time and place. The Killdeer above (image 1) was photographed at Hammonasset Beach State Park in April 2017. A conscientious effort on my part to avoid bad […]
Yellow-headed Blackbird
I’ve been chasing sightings of Yellow-headed Blackbirds in Florida for years. I’ve gone to Palm Beach County, where they are regular in the winter time, I’ve gone up to Alachua County, where they’ve been seen the day before and the day after I was there. I’ve chased them around Lake Apopka, where they’ve always eluded […]
15,354 Days and Counting
As of today, the Ides of March 2017, I saw my first Black-capped Chickadee 15,354 days ago. I’ve seen more than one chickadee on most of those days and over 200 in a single day on a few Christmas Bird Counts. I’m sure I haven’t seen an average of 65 chickadees a day over that […]
Disappearing Nightingales
Taking photos of Common Nightingales can be tricky but flight shots are pretty rare and I was really pleased to capture a sequence of photos set on 1/2500th of a second of such a bird in ‘hovermode’, something that to me at least is a pretty rare sight. During the breeding season and with young […]