The Finnish folk musician Liisa Matveinen lives in a mustard-coloured house in Ilomantsi, 12 miles (20km) from the Russian border. Large books of folk songs line her walls. Sitting in her kitchen, Matveinen sings about a humble hunter going into the woods to find reindeer. The song tells us how they were “honoured” providers of […]
Tag: Northern Lapwing
Radipole and Lodmoor – 13th February
I was working in Sidford, Devon again today and having finished at around 11:00 I decided to divert my route home and head for the Weymouth area for a couple of light weight rarities. First up, at Radipole RSPB was a first-winter drake Ring-necked Duck which had been present on the reserve since 4th November. […]
Lapwings of various species – Haradh
Haradh is a well known wintering location for Northern Lapwing, with flocks of several hundreds seen in recent winters. This trip we located many birds scattered around the fields, but no large flocks and probably saw more than 100 Northern Lapwings in total. The species is an uncommon winter visitor to the northern areas of […]
Winter visitors and passage migrants – Haradh
Phil Roberts and I went to Haradh recently and found plenty of good birds despite the temperature being 1 degrees Celsius the coldest day for many years in the region as well as a bitingly cold northerly wind. Some birds were winter visitors such as Mallard, Northern Lapwing, Desert Wheatear, Eastern Imperial Eagle and Tawny […]
Birding the pivot fields – Haradh
The winter months are a good time to visit Haradh pivot irrigation fields as they hold a lot of good birds at this time of year. Large numbers of wintering Harriers, particularly Western Marsh Harrier and Pallid Harrier occur here and I saw well over thirty birds of both species during my visit. Another group […]
Brittany – Birding around St Malo and Dinan
Brittany, France – May, 2016 – the northern coast of Brittany in France is a great place to spend some time. The dramatic rugged coastline, sandy beaches, wildlife, food and Breton culture are well worth exploring! We were based around Cancale on the east side of the bay of Mont St Michel. Here the oysters […]
Saudi Arabia largest flock of Northern Lapwings – Haradh
As mentioned in a previous post Phil Roberts and I travelled to Haradh an area of extensive pivot irrigation fields three hours drive from Dhahran and found some access to some very good looking fields in various stages of growth from ploughed to fallow to newly growing. We eventually came across two very damp newly […]
Sixteen Sociable Lapwing – Haradh
On 5 February Phil Roberts and I travelled to Haradh an area of extensive pivot irrigation fields three hours drive from Dhahran. We left at 03:00 hrs to allow us to be at the site at first light. We tried the big farm complexes first but were not allowed entry to any so tried a […]