5000 miles from the UK to Central Africa and he’s done it for the last three years at least that’s 30,000 miles on his migration route. They reckon he makes the 3000km crossing of the mediterranean / Sahara in one flight. Now that makes my 75 mile drive to see him seem well worth it. […]
It’s all getting a bit too busy for blogging! The end of April is always my favourite time and at the moment it is the movement of Teal and other dabbling ducks that is occupying me with the never-ending searching for something rare in their midst. Yesterday I was at Nordre Øyeren. At this time […]
We were up at 05:15 to the sound of screaming Saker Falcon, packed our bags and after a quick coffee headed back up Barig Mountain at 06:00 for a last try for Hodgson’s Bush-chat. After climbing the steep grassy and rock strewn slopes of the mountains in the vehicles we parked at the summit and […]
Today was mainly a driving day 570km south from Ulaanbaatar to Dalanzadgad passing through the Gobi Desert with a few stops, mainly at lakes, en-route. The landscape was vast, stark and barren, mainly flat with a few rocky outcrops and dominated by gravel plains with sparse grass. The common birds here were Horned Lark, Asian […]
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 […]
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 […]
The number of waders in the Jubail area is increasing with one or two quite unusual species being seen. An early Broad-billed Sandpiper was an unusual sighting by a small area of water alongside a track as was the well marked Black-winged Stilt seen previously that is still in the same area. More usual waders […]
My last trip to Sabkhat Al Fasl produced a number of waders of various species including the highest number of Marsh Sandpipers I have seen for a while. Most waders were Dunlins with good numbers of Common Ringed Plover scattered amongst them. A few smart plumaged Kentish Plovers were feeding around the shoreline and a […]
A trip to the Dhahran Expro Wader Roost produced plenty of waders of a good variety of species. The tide was not ideal but plenty of birds were along the edges including both Lesser and Greater Sand Plovers in small numbers. Curlew Sandpipers, Eurasian Curlew, Whimbrel, Bar-tailed Godwits and Dunlins had the largest number of […]
Here are some of the raptor photos we managed to see with my Swiss group from Arcatour last week. The wind direction swung around to give us moderate to strong Levante (easterlies) for five days and only died down on our last two days. Still, knowing what the migrating raptors do and where they will […]
It’s been another busy week here down on The Strait of Gibraltar. As the summer slowly comes to an end and autumn weather and shorter days signal birds to move slowly south, the skies above Cadiz province have all kinds of bird species flying over or stopping off to feed before crossing the narrow stretch […]
Green day punk band have almost got their lyrics right as it should have been – wake me up when September comes! After a long and hot summer it is very refreshing to see many migrants arriving on a daily basis with many juv individual among them.Eilat area is not at its best during Autumn […]
My 10-year old son Jaden had been asking to go birding and wanting to take some images of his own. There was an upcoming Photographic competition in the UK, so a good reason for him to try and get images for the Junior category. Jahra Pools Reserve is a small inland reserve in Kuwait with […]
