The turtle dove, Britain’s most endangered bird, continues to plummet towards extinction, its numbers having halved over five years, according to the latest data. The turtle dove’s 51% decline from 2013 to 2017 is the most drastic of a continuing slump for a quarter of farmland bird species. However, there are signs of recovery for […]
Tag: Corn Bunting
Buntings and Larks – Jebal Hamrah
Whilst birding the Jebal Hamrah pivot irrigation fields recently with Phil Roberts, we came across a huge flock of Corn Buntings. The total seen was a minimum of one hundred birds and possibly many more. They were feeding in the grassy pivot fields but a couple of times all took to the air and landed […]
First visit to Elmley of 2019
My first visit to Elmley this year and as an official friend of Elmley that’s a little sad but the place looks good with plenty of water on the reserve and with it plenty of birds and a few Hares.
Great visit to Wallasea Island
Sometimes a days birding can deliver very little and then sometimes days like today come along where it all seems to go right. A Barn Owl as we pulled into the track to the reserve followed by two Short-eared Owls hunting at first light then a male Merlin flashes across us and sits out on […]
Baby Coots at Dungeness
After a two hour search of Rye Harbour for the Terek Sandpiper we gave up and headed over to Dunge. Our reward for this 10 mile diversion was to connect with a smart little Kentish Plover from Dennis’s hide as it walked about on the shingle scrape in the company of Sanderling and Dunlin. I […]
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 […]
Day trip to Titchwell
We set off early this morning arriving at Choseley Barns at 7.30am where I scoped the Dotterel in the rain without too much help from the Jims who already had the tick from a recent twitch in Herts. Once I found the birds their mood changed and they jumped out to enjoy distant views along […]
Corn Bunting – Sarrar
Whilst birding the Sarrar area at then end of February I found a singing Corn Bunting. I could hear the bird singing but could not locate it, but after some time and moving around to try to pinpoint it I saw it at the edge of a large pivot irrigation field sitting on the ground. […]