Monday, February 08, 2016

January 2016


Despite the best efforts of a near constant Westerly gale, i'm still at WWT Steart Marshes for the winter, mostly busy with monitoring the wintering waders and wildfowl. I've been back over to the Avalon Marshes a few times for a bit of guiding, seeing all the usual specialities we would expect and  finishing with the Starling roosts, no time for any photos there though. Photography has been difficult at Steart too, mostly just because the weather has been so awful, though I have managed some pleasing shots on the occasional nice day. The highlight of the winter though has been finding a couple of rare ducks while doing my surveys, an American Wigeon and a Green-winged Teal, record 'phonescoped' photos below:
For the first time, I've entered Patchwork Challenge, an initiative to encourage birders to work their local patches as hard as they can, and hopefully see and find more birds! I think i've started well, with 94 species so far on the WWT Steart Marshes site. It's difficult to have a target in mind, but 150 species and a finish in the upper regions (top 10 maybe) of the Estuarine minileague would be nice. Its a super reserve and I give it a very close working over twice a week so i'm hoping to see plenty more in the rest of my time working there.

Curlew



American Wigeon


Barn Owl
Green-winged Teal
Black-tailed Godwit


Dunlin

Dunlin


Dunlin


Redshank
Marsh Harrier


Merlin