We arrived at first light to find the point covered in thick fog and the fog horn blasting out it’s warning to the ships that couldn’t see the lighthouse. By 7:30am the fog had lifted and we quickly found a couple of Wheatear on the shingle by the fishing boats. An hours sea watch enabled […]
Tag: Redshank
Marsh Harrier and Short-eared Owls at Elmley NNR
I took a drive down to Elmley this afternoon after work thinking it’s as good a place as any to clear the head after a very hard week of chasing numbers. I spent two hours there with little to note other than singing Skylarks, Lapwings and a few Redshank before it all kicked off. First […]
The Vanishing: Europe’s farmland birds
The Head of Conservation for BirdLife Europe & Central Asia explains how intensive agriculture has made farmland birds one of the most threatened bird groups in Europe. Once upon a time, they were all around us – sights and sounds as familiar as the dusky skies their flocks danced in or the wind whistling through […]
Wheatear at Minsmere
An early start saw us walking Minsmere in search of Swampy without joy as it had seemingly “done a bunk” been eaten or simply decided it likes the deeper section of reeds. Anyway we didn’t give much time to scanning the pool and instead decided to enjoy a mornings birding around the reserve. We picked […]
Bonaparte’s Gull at Oare Marsh AGAIN!
Work took me to Kent today so a quick trip to Oare Marsh was on the cards.I arrived at lunch time and Napoleon was sitting pretty just by the bridge on East flood a few yards from the road. He was in the company of hundreds of Black headed gulls and Black-tailed Godwits but was […]
Oare and Elmley
An early morning trip down to Oare marsh in Kent rewarded me with a drake Garganey, Marsh Harriers, Cuckoo and Bearded Tits to name a few. Moving on to Elmley I found more Marsh Harriers and a Short-eared Owl along with plenty of Yellow Wagtails, Redshank and Lapwing as you’d […]
Red List reveals Europe’s farmland wading birds in crisis
The latest update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is out – and it’s sounding alarm bells for some of Europe’s most charismatic and cherished shorebirds (also known as wading birds). The list highlights sharp declines in most farmland wader species across much of Europe in recent decades. In some cases, these falls […]
Around the Marriott
Last Thursday afternoon, visiting Norwegian birder, Ellen Askum and I made it out to the area around the Marriott hotel, Mirbat. A few kilometres east down the coast is Ras Janjari which is one of the best places to seawatch from the mainland. After visiting there we explored the area close to the hotel where […]