Feeding birds is hard-wired into our national psyche. The apocryphal Victorian “tuppence a bag” for seed for the Trafalgar Square pigeons has morphed into a national pastime, with an estimated 17m households spending £250m a year on more than 150,000 tonnes of bird feed – enough to feed the entire breeding population of the 10 […]
Tag: Greenfinch
Turtle dove flies towards extinction as numbers halve in UK
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 […]
Pennington Marsh – 29th February
On a beautiful spring like morning, I dropped Tobias off for his last day at school before the Easter holidays and spent a couple of hours at Pennington Marsh. At the corner of Lower Pennington Lane I had a coffee and watched the Lapwing displaying and listened to the Sky Lark but other than small […]
Bird Tour Report
From Sunday midday until Wednesday afternoon I guided a visiting birder from Canada around places in Kumamoto, Nagasaki and Saga prefectures. Firstly we went to Yatsushiro and Hikawa Estuary, where we saw gulls and shorebirds, however the Black-faced Spoonbills that I had expected there were not to be found. The next morning we watched Streaked […]
All along The Strait
Yesterday the weather started to change, as a low-pressure system came up from the south-west. Rain came in the night which is a pity as it’s our daughter Amelia’s birthday today! There were some insects around as I explored the coastline from Tarifa to Pelayo with father and son, Terry and Gary from the UK […]
Southern Spain Part 1 – The Strait of Gibraltar with Limosa Holidays
Day 5. Sunday 16th September A thick layer of mist hung over the coast and main road to Tarifa as we took an early breakfast. Driving a short distance onto the old military land, now being used by Fundación Migres, we left in the mini-bus and decided to have a look at the physical layout […]