Wildwood, goldfinches, wet dog and RSPB campaign championing!

Well, it seems I am not doing very well at keeping to my new year's resolution - to post more... nearly a month! Not acceptable really, but anyway I think I now have a fair amount to write about.

At the end of January my mum and I took a trip to Wildwood Trust (a wildlife park near us) to see how much it had changed since I last went there when I was about 10. They still continue to enthuse the general public on our native mammals and birds alike. They have expanded their collection of mammals which are involved in their conservation programmes, and it was a delight to see some of their usually elusive creatures such as the red squirrel. These kinds of places are essential for educating our younger generations about the importance of looking after our British mammals and birds, but also for instilling a keen interest in the work carried out there.

Anyway here are a few of the photos I managed to take...

Wild Horse (Konik Pony)

Fallow deer

Tufted duck

Red-crested pochard

February started off rather slowly, not too much to say about it really, other than the goldfinches finally taking an interest in the nyger seed we started putting out. They are now daily visitors, as is our GSW which did disappear for a while.

Goldfinch

We had a lovely spell of warm weather a couple of weeks ago, what a treat to not have to wear wellies and a big coat! We went for a few nice walks with pup, he does his best to scare away any birds we may see! He got his comeuppance for this... Instead of using the bridge over the pondweed covered water in the ditch, he jumped straight in! This was his first swim, so I chucked my camera to mum just in case he couldn't get out. Luckily for me he clambered out and I was saved from a chilly dip! He was covered in green smelly pondweed and he went a bit mad after this!

Another day, another walk.

..and his new hobby is Litter picking!

Enough puppy pictures, he is such a poser!


The weekend just gone brought very cold weather, so walks, as necessary as they are, aren't quite as enjoyable as usual.

So, I left mum to take Bracken to his puppy class and walk him and I spent the day in London at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) where I attended the RSPB Campaign Champions Training Day. It was a well spent day, with talks from Martin Abrams, Paul Outhwaite and Laura MacKenzie, and activities to get us (the volunteers) to think about what a good campaign entails. We learnt more about how we can use Letter writing, social media, traditional media and Face to Face Lobbying to inform our local MPs about what we think they should be doing to help our campaign. These activities were great, and got everyone sharing their opinions. It was nice to meet like minded people, who had similar interests and views I do. I was also happy that there were some more people of a similar age to me at this event, as the last campaign workshop I went to, I think I was the youngest volunteer. It is nice to know that I'm not the only person of my age to care about nature, birds and the future of our wildlife! Lots of issues were discussed including he badger cull, the Thames Estuary Airport and the RSPB's current campaign - Stepping up for Nature! All in all the day was a success, learning how to campaign and making new friends!

Hopefully my next post will be a bit sooner and will include more birding activities!

Big Garden Birdwatch and a Trip to Elmley Marshes

It was rather a lovely weekend. Despite the forecast of rain on both Saturday and Sunday we were lucky enough to miss it on both days!

We went for a nice walk on Saturday morning with blue skies and that bright thing we hadn't seen for a while, the sun I think they call it! There were quite a few fieldfares around, as well as possible mistle thrush or two, however flew off before we could confirm.

We had a bit of a job getting the puppy clean and dry as he likes to play with the towel. Once settled kept an eye on the garden so could start the hour of birding for the RSPB big garden birdwatch. Let the pup into the garden and heard Long tailed tits, so quickly called him in so he didn't disturb them then started my hour! 9 LTT turned up along with a great tit and chaffinch, a blue tit which visited 3 or 4 times in the hour. A few house sparrows visited the nut feeder, a couple of blackbirds hopped about, the resident pair of collard doves and a little robin all adding to the total. Not sure where the 10 or so starlings which usually visit disappeared to, and shame the wren didn't make an appearance and the great spotted woodpecker which made his début last week. In the front garden there were 8 or so sparrows at one time, along with a dunnock that fed on the ground. All in all 9 species and 29 birds in total!

Long tailed tit

Robin

Blue tit

Yesterday we headed over to the Isle of Sheppey, to visit the RSPB reserve Elmley Marshes. On our way over we saw 2 buzzards and then we had just entered the reserve and a kestrel landed in a tree in front of us. As we drove, or rather crawled, along the winding country road to the car park area, we saw hundreds of lapwings, a large flock of curlew. A lone skylark fluttered along in front of the car, twittering away! When we got walking we saw a few teal and widgeon down on the flooded marshes. Again lots of curlew and probably dunlin and knot. We also noted a solitary little egret and a couple of shelduck flying over. We just turned to head back as it was rather chilly and I spotted a hare! First one of the year! Luckily it was close enough to get a few photos! Could have stopped and watched it all afternoon but pup was restless, he isn't such a keen twitcher! We also saw the usual suspects, marsh harriers, always a pleasure to watch.

Kestrel

Lapwing

Curlew

 

 

 

 

Pup got bored of waiting for us to watch birds and lay down in the grass...

And now for the star of the show...

No, not the sheep!

How do you do

On our way back along the lane there were lots of cars pulled up, presumably something interesting had been spotted. We could see a number of knot and also probably a fair few ruff or maybe they were redshank, but maybe they weren't and we missed out on a fabulously rare bird!

Here are a couple of blurry photos, any comments on idenification would be welcomed!

Anyway pretty good weekend all in all! Hope everyone else did too! 

Wood you look at that!

Yesterday my mum and I were just sitting eating our lunch, watching the birds come and go, as usual. I then saw something with a red bottom... our first great spotted woodpecker! We've seen one on a nearby tree before, but they have never fed on the peanuts that we put out! Must be the cold weather!
I got a few photos from the back door, but I didn't want to open the door and frighten it away.

We also had chaffinch, blue tit, great tit, robin, song thrush, sparrow, starling and blackbird in the garden all at the same time! I think that must be a record for our little garden! Wish it was garden birdwatch this weekend, would have been a cracker! Haven't had any visits from the LTTs recently though. Well I guess they may have popped by whilst we weren't watching!

Anyway here are a couple of my photos

Better late than never... first post of 2013!

Well, not got off to a brilliant start to the new year with regards to posting frequently... Don't even really have a very good excuse other than been fairly busy I guess! Been out walking lots with the pup but don't often take my camera or bins, and see the regulars; chaffinch, blackbird, song thrush, various tits, lots of fieldfares and starlings around also.

Our brief snow flurry earlier this week resulted in it settling for about 2 hours until it all melted, I did get a few nice photos though...

Blackbird with a snowy beak

Collared dove

Pup with a snowy nose, ready to jump into the flower bed!

I had a driving lesson on Wednesday and as I was driving back towards home, there was the most beautiful hazy sunset. When I got home my mum informed me she had seen 12 waxwings at Whitstable Tesco. Gutted I missed out on seeing them.

Anyway yesterday we seized the opportunity to go out for a wintry walk down to Seasalter, have a wander along the sea wall and along the beach. The main thing to note were about 400 gulls looking rather lovely on the estuary lit by afternoon sun. I think they were a mixture of gulls, they aren't really my strong point so could have been just a mixture of juveniles and adults. Well I took a few photos but they were quite far away, if anyone would like to enlighten me if there are any gulls which look exciting to them, please do leave a comment! There were a few turnstones, a couple of ringed plover and also knot around and we were also delighted to have a shelduck fly by!

Beautiful calm water

They are quite far away, but any ideas? We both also wondered what the group of black birds were to the right of the photo..

Ringed plovers

Turnstones in flight

Turnstone

Our naughty pup

More gulls

Shelduck

Shame about the pylons but it was such a lovely sunset!

As I said above any comments on the gulls would be welcomed :)

I will try and post again a bit sooner!

My first end of year post!

Well hasn't this year flown by!

This is the first year I have actually attempted to record all the birds I have seen, previously I have just enjoyed looking out for birds whilst out and about, however now we go out specifically to look for them!

January to May was not so hot for birds for me, as I was trying to concentrate on my degree (trying being the main word, not always succeeding!) and with a difficult dissertation to complete and 8 exams to revise for the best I got was watching red kites from the 5th floor windows of the library! Not such a hard life! Once exams were over I had more time to concentrate on birding!

The end of may brought good things, I purchased my first DSLR and 70-300mm lens so I could really try and get some better photos of the birds that I so love!

One of my first bird photos was of a lovely reed bunting sitting, begging for a photo! Taken down at Oare marshes (30th May), this handsome fella was accompanied by little egrets, avocets, greylag geese, coots and more!

Reed bunting

Little egret

Avocet

The beginning of June saw my first trip to Scotland! My mum and I took a trip to Edinburgh, where we did usual touristy things such as the zoo (where we saw bullfinches, and not in a cage thankfully!), the castle, botanical gardens etc! One of the days we decided to jump off the bus early and join the river Leith walk to get back in touch with nature! Little did we expect to see a bird which we searched for high and low on a trip to Wales in 2011.... a dipper! What a truly fantastic little bird!! It hung around for a while, dipping and catching fish while we watched in awe! A lovely robin also sat and posed for me.

Dipper

Robin

Early July brought avocet chicks, house martin chicks and screeching swifts, 3 of my all time favourites! (how many favourites is one allowed?!) I think the 2 pairs of house martins which nest on the side of our house and another pair on our neighbours house had 3 broods throughout this summer, which was great news! Not such great news for mum's camellia which ends up covered in house martin poo!

Avocet chick (1 of 3)

A trip to Dungeness allowed us sightings of linnets, peregrines, common terns, marsh harrier and a lovely male stonechat! I also saw my first marbled white butterfly!

Stonechat

Linnet

I was then away travelling around Eastern and central Europe for the whole of September. I was with a friend and we mainly toured the cities, I was lucky enough to see hundreds of alpine swifts in Bulgaria which was a real treat! On the many buses and trains I saw a great number of birds of prey, however identification at 70mph is not really feasible! There were many times when it would have been perfect to have gone birding! In Bosnia and Herzegovina and also Croatia I saw bright blue and red flashes, however I just wasn't equipped for birding! However, did see hundreds of swallows in several countries and a lovely great crested grebe on Lake Balaton in Hungary! No new ticks though!

Great crested grebe (non-breeding plumage)

Autumn back in the UK provided opportunities for lovely bright seasonal photos, but as mentioned before, birding flew out of my life briefly when a puppy Bracken became a part of our family!

However this just made me take more notice of our resident garden birds! A bold wren, a flock of 8 or so long tailed tits which love the fat balls, many blue tits, great tits, starlings, house sparrows, dunnocks, a robin or two, blackbirds, thrushes and a pair of collard doves that sit in our tree and crap everywhere, ready for the pup to eat it!

Long tailed tit

As winter drew near, the chatterings of fieldfares and redwings were heard over our garden, heading towards the orchards. On another trip to Oare Marshes we were graced by the presence of teal, lapwing, coot, pintail, linnet and stonechat.

Golden plover was another new bird for me as were the beautiful and magnificent waxwings!

So what a great year! I may not have seen loads of really rare birds or even lots of new birds, but I have seen lots of my favourites and this year has paved the way for a great new year of birding! Bring on 2013!

Thanks to anyone who has taken the time to read my posts and I wish you a Happy New Year!!