Mallorca 11-15th April

Alpine Accentor 

Audouin's Gull

Lesser Spotted Eagle

Lesser Spotted Eagle

Lesser Spotted Eagle

Bonelli's Warbler

Balearic Warbler

Balearic Warbler

Little Bittern

Marbled Ducks

Moltoni's Warbler

Moustached Warbler

Moustached Warbler

Purple Heron

Serin

Sardinian Warbler

Whiskered Terns

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

Island Hopping in The Caribbean

Back in December I spent 2 weeks on board the MS Serenissima working as a zodiac driver and naturalist guide on a cruise run by Noble Caledonia. This was a little different from my cruises around the UK and Iceland earlier in the year, but no less enjoyable. The weather was perfect as you would expect, a welcome break from a miserable British winter, and the island chain of the Lesser Antilles is a stunning destination. Opportunities for birding were limited, we spent more time doing such pleasant things as snorkelling, sampling the products of various plantation/distilleries, and touring old forts and museums and such like.

Of course I did manage to see a few nice bits and bobs, and our ship was almost constantly accompanied by some fantastic seabirds. Heres a few photos I grabbed between rum punches:

Antillean Crested Hummingbird

Antillean Crested Hummingbird

Brown Booby

Black-faced Grassquit

Blue-headed Hummingbird

Blue-headed Hummingbird

Bananaquit

Carib Grackle

Flying fish sp.

Grey Kingbird

Lesser Antillean Bullfinch

Lesser Antillean Flycatcher

lizard sp.

Least Sandpiper

Mangrove Cuckoo

Magnificent Frigatebird

Pearly-eyed Thrasher

Purple-throated Carib

Purple-throated Carib

Red-billed Tropicbird

Red-billed Tropicbird

Red-footed Booby

Royal Tern

Pantropical Spotted Dolphin

Semi-palmated Sandpiper

White-cheeked Pintail

Wilsons Plover

Yellow-crowned Night Heron