Why are you still here?

The Avalon Marshes are producing some fantastic birding at the moment. You shouldn't be reading about it on here though, you should be looking at my new website www.avalonwildlife.co.uk for all the latest.

Oh, and if you could add it as a link, that would be amaaaazing. cheers

I found two of these leggy beauts yesterday!!

Went looking for a Black Kite and bumped into this Osprey instead

Bitterns everywhere

Hobbies starting to arrive in numbers

Back on the Levels, back in the game

The lack of bloggage this summer has been a sad reflection of my birding effort lately, I won't whinge about it though, cos its my own bloody fault. I did manage another a few days birding on the Somerset Levels at the end of August. This was typically brilliant for this fantastic area and produced the following goodies:

Great White Egret, The resident colour ringed bird from the Loire-Atlantique

Spotted Crake at the back of the drained lagoon, far too distant for a photo, use your imagination!

Osprey on Noah's Lake, possibly the annually returning bird.

The highlight of the week. A Pectoral Sandpiper that flew in to the drained lagoon early one morning, a much appreciated self-found tick for minimal effort

I'm currently back in Bournemouth and soon to start my 3rd and final year of uni, but laziness and hangovers have prevented any birding.

Shit gets real later this week however as I return to Malta to join Birdlife Malta for 2 weeks of their annual raptor camp. After witnessing for myself some of the horrors inflicted on migrating birds back in the spring I knew I had to go back and do what I could to help. This time i'll be taking my laptop and will be writing a daily blog describing the events, the work of the Birdlife Malta staff and volunteers, birds, birding and life on camp, primarily with the goal of persuading other people to join future camps. Hopefully i'll be able to get some nicer photos of birds than the 'images' shown in this blog post.

Levelling

After getting back from Malta it was back to the Somerset Levels for a few days birding with my Dad, which yet again produced the goods. After being picked up from the airport early afternoon, conventional logic would have suggested having a nap, as an average of 5 hours sleep a night on Springwatch had left me totally drained. However, it just felt a bit 'birdy' so after a quick lunch we headed down to Shapwick, the journey down being hurried by breaking news that a Wood Sandpiper that had been on the drained pool for the last few days had been re-identified as a Lesser Yellowlegs, a mega bird for Somerset. Sure enough, when we arrived this leggy transatlantic vagrant was pottering around the pool already with a decent sized crowd of admirers. It never came very close and this was the best shot I managed in several visits over a few days.

Rare as it was, the 'legs couldn't quite compete with this absolute stunner of a bird. I've never seen Great White Egret in breeding plumage, so it awesome to see this colourful beast fishing and flying about the same pool, check out the colours on the tibia and the lores, it's frickin glowing!!

Come at me bro'!!

The place was alive with birds as ever, and very noisy too. Cuckoos were flying around all over the place, phyllosc, sylvia and acro warblers singing from every bush, Bitterns booming and Hobbies and Marsh Harriers constantly overhead, excellent birding.

That evening I was in the mood for finding a Night Heron (we've all been there at some point) so after dinner we were just picking up our stuff to head back for a quick look when the news came through that a Gull-billed Tern was over Noah's Lake. I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't best happy. When a bird as good as that gets found at a site that you're just on your way over too, it's difficult to not feel a bit 'gazumped', especially after almost the same scenario with the Yellowlegs earlier in the day. Still, it was another great bird for Somerset so we hastened on down and got good views of the bird hawking for c20 minutes before it naffed off high to the South, never to be seen again. It was a bit dark for photography but the following just about qualify as 'record shots'.

It was back down to Shapwick first thing the next morning to see if the previous days stars were still around and if anything else new had arrived. The Leeser Yellowlegs was still showing nicely in the same spot, and the drained pool also attractd in a drake Garganey, and briefly resting Whimbrel, Ruff and Little-ringed Plover alongside the constantly turning over squabbling flock of Black-tailed Godwits.

If you're not seeing the sun like this then you need to man up and get out of bed earlier

One of the ubiquitous singing Blackcaps

It'll be a sad day when I can walk past one of these bad boys without taking a photo

After the horrors of Malta it was a delight to see Marsh Harriers safely going about their business

The next day morning was just as good, with a majical highlight being two Bitterns circling high over the reedbeds just as the dawn broke. With the crisp, still air, the soft sunlight starting to break through a light mist and the cuckoos and all the warblers singing in the background, this was a really evocative moment, and for me summed what The Levels are all about. I took a few photos but they don't do the moment justice at all, so I won't post them here, you'll just have to go experience it for yourself.

I dont like to end on a sour note but you really should check out the latest awful news from Malta here. Frickin Pallid Harrier!! Where does this shit end!!

Karma Strikes Early

This time yesterday I was roundly cursing the birding gods for forsaking me by producing a Red-flanked Bluetail at Durlston, just down the road from my student house in Bournemouth, a mere 18 hours after I had left Dorset for the Easter holidays. I had made what was looking like a shocking decision to head up to Somerset for a few days birding on the Levels with my Dad, before a starting a weeks work tomorrow, and the Dorset departure was looking like a bad move: I still 'need' RFB for Britain, and indeed the world if they're split from the Himalyan birds. There's not many things that i'll twitch these days, but that would certainly have been on the cards, being so close to 'home'. Still, it wasnt going to stop us birding the levels and this morning had been most pleasant, with a whole heap of migrant year ticks; LRP, Ruff, Willow Warblers, Sand Martins, and best of all 2 Swallows, my favourite of all our native birds. Just five minutes from getting back to the car for the last time before departing for East Somerset, we noticed a large bird passing distantly through a gap in the trees, clearly wasn't a heron, bins up and another glimpse before disappearing behind the trees again- BLACK STORK!!!!!! SHIIIIIT!!!!! (wholly accurate representation of the ensuing conservation). The bird looked to be simply heading away behind more trees when it decided to turn around, circle twice and then carry on drifting low North-east, giving us just enough time to get some nice views and blast off a few record shots. Unfortunately my camera, unused for several weeks had switched itself to some horrendous setting and my first shots, of the bird at its closest were overblown something rotten. Luckily, a bird that big manages to burn itself onto a sensor despite the photographers ineptitude and I got the following 'souvenirs':

 

And what's all that about Karma? I hear you cry. Well, on the 10th April i'm off volunteering in Malta with Birdlife at their Springwatch Camp to do my very best to protect migrant birds from being shot indiscriminately. Anyone who watches 'My Name is Earl'-one of the few watchable programs on E4, will know that if you do good things, good things happen back to you. I like to see this as Nature's reward for my upcoming trip. The moral of the story, if you want to find as many good birds as I do (smug much?) do you some volunteering, not neccessarily in Malta, try the RSPB, or your local Wildlife Trust, you never know, it could pay off!