Back garden Bittern

Got a phone call this afternoon:

"I've got a Bittern in my garden"

And the gentleman did have! His garden backs on to the river Ivel at Langford and this amazing creature has been parading around his garden for around a week giving magnificent views. There are certainly perks to being the county recorder, at least sometimes.

Sprats

Bittern eating sprats from Steve Blain on Vimeo.

In times of hard weather its been recommended to provide fish for wintering Bitterns. As most water bodies in Bedfordshire have been totally frozen over in recent weeks, Stewartby Lake has remained the only place with free water. Consequently there are six Bitterns wintering there!

Neil Wright and Roy Nye have been proving sprats for a while now and I managed to capture one bird taking them. At least they are surviving the monster freeze.

Wowl!

Wow, an Owl!

Carrie and I went out for a quick look for owls last night. PH should have been coming over but has fallen foul of flu. We saw two Barn Owls and this Tawny. This one stayed long enough for a couple of quick digiscoped shots before flying off in to the fog.

I used an iso of 500 (ie fairly high) to try and get a reasonable shutter speed and stop blurring. We were about 15 meters from the bird so I could fit it all in my scope.

Kit used:

Swaro ATS 80 HD, 20x eyepiece, universal adapter, Canon S90, self-timer.

Bird is the word

Bird is the word from The RSPB on Vimeo.

More weirdos

I first found one, and now there are four birds that look identical! Are they really Wigeon x Gadwall hybrids, or are they the more common Teal x Gadwall hybrids? Blunham Lake, Beds, 8th December 2010

Tis the season

'tis the season to look for Waxwings, tralalalala-lalala...

Woburn, 5th December 2010

What happens if you can't go birding

This is a warning: Don't let the snow make you go as mad as this:

Of Pies and Birds: 2nd December. Snow Madness