The elegant hen harrier is perhaps the most iconic bird of prey in the uplands of northern England, but it is also one of the most endangered bird of prey in Britain. These large raptors wheel and soar above the moorland and, in late spring, perform a spectacular ‘sky dance’, exchanging tokens of their affection […]
Tag: Meadow Pipit
Thousands of wild animals ‘slaughtered’ every year to protect shooting for sport on grouse moors
An Oxford-led academic study has claimed a staggering 260,000 animals are killed in Scotland every year to protect the grouse population for shooting on country estates. They said the practice of using traps to cull predators on Scottish moors causes “tremendous, unjustifiable suffering” to creatures and must be fully banned. Animals targeted include foxes, weasels, […]
Spoonbills at Cley
We headed to Cley this morning quickly ticking the five Temminck’s Stints before moving on to the Eastbank where we found another year tick with nine Little Terns sitting on Arnold’s Marsh. A Little Stint was reported but we failed to find it. Back in the car and we noticed four Spoonbill flying over Walsey […]
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 […]
Still waiting
Despite afternoon temperatures reaching +6C, overnight frosts and thick snow and ice means that there are very few signs of spring. Apart from a couple of scouts, finches and thrushes have yet to arrive and that is no surprise as there would be no food for them to find. It is still a long way […]
Quiet morning at Minsmere
At the crack of dawn we’re walking the north bushes at Minsmere only to find a few Brambling and a Bullfinch for our effort. An Otter and four Red Deer showed as we walked the north wall and lot’s of Beardies pinged all around but despite the calm didn’t show that well. On the wader […]
Dunlin
I’ve seen a few pictures recently on Facebook of Bluethroats in gardens so concluded that the passage is peaking and set off to Fornebu this morning with high hopes of gaining good views (and my first sighting this autumn) of one of my favourite birds. My hopes were not to be fulfilled with there continuing […]
Bearded Reedlings (Panurus biarmicus)
Nice and sunny with no fog today so I thought I’d try for the hairy titties again. I found them and at times had them close, sometimes also with sun light on them and also close enough to use the flash but am I happy with any of the pics? Don’t think so. Behavior wise […]