Just back from a week away in the Forest of Dean with my grandson with limited birding opportunities as the week was geared around ensuring he had a good time. I added a few year ticks with Ravens in the garden of our cottage and I twitched the Yellow-browed Warbler a couple of miles from […]
Tag: Red-rumped Swallow
Birding the Abha Area
Whilst birding the Abha area recently we went to Azeeza to look for Blandford’s Short-toed Larks as birds had been seen here by us in previous years. The area has had some building and construction work done in the last couple of years and despite quite extensive searching we failed to find any birds. Very […]
Barn Swallow at Minsmere
I visited Minsmere today stopping at Alton Waters where the Red-rumped Swallow had disappeared before I arrived but I bagged a single Arctic Tern for a consolation prize. At Minsmere I tried first for the Savi’s but after an hour gave in and walked the reserve finding a single LRP before dipping the Garganey in […]
The Levante winds of Spring – Spain 2017
I lead a tour group from the the US Audubon Naturalist Society in April to southern Spain. We had a great time apart from the awful windy weather. The famous Levante wind just would not stop for almost the whole eight days. We did however have a great time, saw lots of birds and other […]
Conservation ecologists know no boundaries
Sorry for the recent slow rate of new posts. I am very busy with fieldwork and have little time to blog. Anyway, in recent days we worked both in Alentejo and in an adjacent section of Extremadura, near Olivenza. It is interesting to witness conservation issues in different colours and flavours. I can’t wait to […]
Pennington Marsh – 13th May
Another morning at Pennington Marshes was needed and I was on site by 06:00. It was remarkably cold for this late in the year with a north-easterly wind blowing and so I set off with fleece and gloves. Birding Efford lagoon it was apparent that the Swift, Swallow, House Martin and Sand Martin were struggling […]
Migrating Over a Carpet of Flowers
The last few weeks have been pretty busy for me with lots of tours and finding lots of migratory birds. This year’s early rain through the month of March was extreme but all along we knew that it would be a spectacular spring and hence have been rewarded with carpets of amazing multicoloured blooms covering […]
Migration across to Europe
It’s quite a long photo post this week and please scroll down and enjoy the views we’ve been having. I’ve been quite busy and wanted to write up more but I was out in the field most days and had lots of emails and other office work to do. Black-eared Wheatears continued to show up […]