Bee-eater slomo

I've just spent a week in Cumbria and wasn't far from the latest Bee-eater breeding attempt at Low Gelt Quarry.  I had to pop in, obviously.  Nice views, if a little distant were had, but they were so far off and quick that I thought a bit of slomo video was the order of the day.  It's not brilliant, but fun.

Hummer in slomo

These are so quick I thought the slomo mode on my iPhone 6 would give me a better view of the action!  Hummingbird Hawk-moth, The Lodge, 9th July 2015

Whitethroat (with bits of a Lesser)

This Whitethroat is giving a passable impression of a Lesser Whitethroat amongst its usual song.  This bird was found originally in 2014 by Roger Hicks in a similar area but wasn't really pinned down until last week when he relocated it.

I haven't yet look up how frequent mimickry is in Common Whitethroat, but this bird not only includes Lesser Whitethroat song in its own, but also Swallow, Common Tern and several other common species (although a devil to catch on video!).  It joins a select group of species I've heard give copies of similar species songs - Firecrests that sounds like Goldecrests, and Willow Warblers that sound like Chiffchaffs - both of which I have now come across several times.

Penduline

Penduline Tit, Meadow Lane GP, 29th December 2014.

This was a stunning find at the back end of 2014.  Digiscoped with a Nikon V1, 10-30mm lens, Swarovski ATS 80 HD and 25-50x eyepiece.

Birdrace

4 birders, 4th May 2014, Bedfordshire, 110 species.  Ordinary.  Birdrace: The Movie.

Parrots

I eventually managed a trip up to Norfolk to see the Parrot Crossbills at Holt CP yesterday.  After seeing them very briefly first thing in the morning we eventually got brilliant views around lunchtime.  Not excellent photos but I was too busy actually looking at them.  Choop choop!

3 Caspians and an Iceland

I went back to Milton a few days later with Mark Thomas.  The gulling was still brilliant - just the four Caspian Gulls this time, but also a juvenile Iceland gull too.  Nice.

I've added some music to this one, mainly to blot out all the swearing...

Out of county gulling

On Monday I had a cracking afternoons gulling in Cambs.  I started off at the tip at Milton and spent two happy hours pouring through the few thousand gulls coming and going.  Top of the pops were up to six Caspian Gulls, with a back up of around ten Yellow-legged Gulls.  I was disappointed not to bag myself a white-winger as up to two juv Glaucs had been seen the previous few days.  At around 3:15 I thought I should give the Grafham roost a go.  I was pushing it get there before it got too dark, but managed to pull up just after 4pm

I started scanning from the fishing lodge and within five minutes I had found a lovely looking adult Glauc not far off shore.  All other hopes of finding more Caspo's drifted in to the darkness as I happily watched my first adult Glauc of a good few years.

The videos above were digiscoped (at great distance!) with a Swarovski ATS 80 HD, 25-50x zoom, and Nikon V1 and kit lens.

Stints

These are the first Little Stints in Beds for a while.  They made a nice lunchtime treat on my usual pop to Broom GP. 12th September 2013.

Spotty little oik

After only three visits I manged to see the Bedford Spotted Crake well.

Pec

The first 'Pec' for Broom.  Just part of Broom gravel pits great run of birds this year. These include: Purple Heron, Glossy Ibis, Rough-legged Buzzard, Roseate Tern, Spoonbill.  Not bad for a dirty hole in the ground!

Birdparty

Birdparty; Are you going?

Lovely Philippines

I'm slowly getting round to adding bits from my recent Philippines trip - there are a handful of videos which I will upload to the IBC, and I will put any photos on Flickr.  Above is a Lovely Sunbird.  More to follow...

Murmuration

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

I bumped in to this on Vimeo and though it was well worth sharing.  Starling roosts are one of the most amazing bird spectacles we have in the UK.  Make sure you make the effort and go and see one this winter.

Azorean type Gull video

Azorean type Yellow-legged Gull from Steve Blain on Vimeo.

Some video of the second Azorean type Yellow-legged Gull at Stewartby Tip, October 2011

Teacher-weacher

Common Rosefinch, Fowlmere, Cambridgeshire from Steve Blain on Vimeo.

I have fond memories of singing Rosefinches.  This was one of the 'stand out' birds for me from my very first trip abroad - to Russia, at the tender age of 13, in 1992.

It was a YOC organised trip, back when they had such things, to a conference for over 100 Russian kids, as well as a group from the States, and around 10 British YOCers.

A few things stick in my mind about the conference - lots of talks (in Russian, then translated to English) about Crows, an id quiz with bird skins, the smell of Russian disinfectant (or it could have been vodka?) around the canteen, and eating raw fish.

Obviously, the best things about the conference were the birds, and the place we stayed at was superb.  It was a college campus in the heart of rural Russia, around fifty miles east of Moscow.  The near-by village was full of wooden houses with nest boxes for Starlings, and surrounded by fields vibrating to the sound of Corncrakes. The woodland had exciting things too - fighting Golden Orioles which tumbled to the ground, hulking and slightly ghostly Black Woodpeckers, nesting Long-eared Owls with curious squeaky-gating youngsters, difficult to see Red-breasted Fly's and Greenish Warblers in the canopy.  The river, with its rather deadly looking wooden bridge you had to cross, had breeding Common Gulls, with River Warblers, and Blyth's Reed Warblers singing from the lush growth along its edges.  One day was spent in the marshes, a short bus trip away.  These had hordes of White-winged Black Terns dipping over the pools, and I remember walking through a meadow with whickering Black-tailed Godwits shimmying overhead.  A male Citrine Wagtail singing from an earth clod was blindingly bright, and a Terek Sandpiper scooted off a scrape of water as we passed by.  It was an unbelievably top trip, and undoubtedly sparked my interest in foreign birding.

Oh yes, and there were oodles of breeding Scarlet Grosbeaks, as we called them back then.  The Russians apparently called them 'Teacher-weacher' birds because of their lovely simple song.  Hearing the, unfortunately rather dowdy, Fowlmere bird singing from its favourite tree brought all these memories flooding back.

Spotted in Milton Keynes

Spotted Sandpiper at Caldecote Lake, Milton Keynes from Steve Blain on Vimeo.

A lovely local bird, just a shame it was in Bucks. Wonder where it is now?

Last chance to see

One of the best moments of wildlife TV EVER!

BedsBirds 2010 DVD

See what you missed, if you didn't buy the DVD or come to the meeting in December, in this minute-and-a-half long version.

Let's Get Our Larophilia On, Shall We?

Love gulls? Love this.