The woodcock is surprising in many ways, not least because of its association with woodland habitats, largely nocturnal behaviour and strange display-flight. Related to the snipes, the woodcock has evolved to take advantage of the small invertebrates found under woodland leaf litter and in damp soil. This ground-loving species flies only sparingly, except when on […]
Tag: Snipe
Guiding in the Dale
Yesterday I was guiding Andy from Florida. We spent the whole day in Maridalen and despite a very fresh northerly wind the Dale did not disappoint and we had a very fun and production session. I was back in the Dale this morning (where else would I be) to follow up on the Ortolan Buntings. […]
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 […]
Chiffchaff
Yesterday saw me visit Maridalen and Nordre Øyeren. Maridalen was extremely quiet although the Black Redstart was still present and attracting a stream of admirers. At Nordre Øyeren the water level is a whole metre higher than normal for this time of the year but there is still shallow water and mud to find and […]
First visit to Elmley of 2019
My first visit to Elmley this year and as an official friend of Elmley that’s a little sad but the place looks good with plenty of water on the reserve and with it plenty of birds and a few Hares.
Great visit to Wallasea Island
Sometimes a days birding can deliver very little and then sometimes days like today come along where it all seems to go right. A Barn Owl as we pulled into the track to the reserve followed by two Short-eared Owls hunting at first light then a male Merlin flashes across us and sits out on […]
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 […]
A Bad dose of Hawkie
Today I had my first outing with Zak for what seems like ages. As is our wont we had a Tour de Østfold. First stop was Kurefjorden. Here we had a rising tide that seemed to bear no resemblance to that which was predicted by the tide tables but conditions were very good with all […]