80/365 Birding 2019 update

21 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature

Tags

#365DaysWild, birding, Birding 2019, birding in East Sussex, British birds, Glossy ibis

You may, or may not, have noticed that my daily posts have not been happening for the past eight days. This is because, during a visit with a friend in East Sussex, I was struck down by a nasty virus, which has left me stumbling drunkenly, still suffering vertigo if I move my head too quickly, and generally lacking in energy. I’m slowly coming right, with a couple of short walks out over the past couple of days, and today I made the trek by train – bus – train back home to Wales. It may yet be a couple of weeks until I can manage longer walks but I hope to be back to my daily posts tomorrow. In the meantime, I couldn’t resist looking through my holidays snaps and have updated my Birding 2019 page with the five new birds I saw while away.

115 glossy ibis

Glossy ibis

13 Sunday May 2018

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

birding, Birding in Druridge Bay, birdwatching, British birds, Druridge Pools, Glamorgan Bird Club, Glossy ibis, Northumberland birding, Plegadis falcinellus

One of the nearest and clearest avian encounters on my recent birding trip to England’s north east was our sighting of a Glossy ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) at Druridge Pools.

180512 glossy ibis (2)

This is a large bird, similar in many ways to a heron, but the Glossy ibis has a beautifully rich plumage in vibrant shades of bronze and green. The Glossy is not strictly speaking a British bird – it can be found in the warmer parts of Europe, Asia and the Americas – but these birds have been visiting Britain more frequently in recent years (I saw my first at RSPB Ham Wall last year).

180512 glossy ibis (1)

This particular Glossy ibis eluded us when we first arrived at Druridge – it had been scared off by photographers getting too close and a tractor driving by – but, luckily for us, it later returned to the site and was grazing within a few yards of the fence so we had outstanding views of it. I even managed to take a short video.

Eleven go birding in a minibus

12 Saturday May 2018

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

barn owl, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Glossy ibis, Tree sparrow, Wood duck

180512 Seawatching at Musselburgh

From 4 to 9 May, I joined a group of my fellow Glamorgan birders on a 6-day, multi-location, dawn-to-dusk, exhilarating (if a little exhausting), absolutely incredible birding blast to Northumberland and beyond.

180512 At East Chevington Nature Reserve

As a group we saw 149 different species of bird, I added 52 birds to my year list, of which 18 were first-in-my-lifetime sightings, and I increased my knowledge of birds well beyond my initial expectations. And I saw a wide range of magnificent sites and stunning scenery in England and Scotland that I hadn’t seen before. Huge thanks to my birding buddies Ade, Alan, Andrew, Ceri, John, Rob, Stuart, Tim, Trevor, and Trish. You’re the best!!!

180512 Seawatching at Druridge Bay

The photos below show just a few of the birds we saw – there will be blogs on individual species as soon as I get through processing my 1100+ photos. In the meantime, here’s a link to my updated birding list. I’ve now got 176 of the 200 species I’m aiming to see this year (though a couple of these are dubious ticks and I should probably aim for 204 to compensate). With most of the more common birds now ticked off and this trip done and dusted, the task of finding the final 24 (or 28) species becomes a whole lot harder.

133 wood duck 139 barn owl 147 tree sparrow 164 glossy ibis

Birding at RSPB Ham Wall

12 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

birding, birdwatching, Bittern, Black-tailed godwits, Blackcap, British birds, Glossy ibis, Great Crested Grebe, Great white egret, Little egret, Marsh harrier, Mute swan, RSPB Ham Wall, Shapwick Heath

Yesterday was an absolutely fabulous birding day, an outing with my friends from the Glamorgan Bird Club to the RSPB’s Ham Wall Nature Reserve near Glastonbury in Somerset. We also ventured briefly into the neighbouring National Nature Reserve of Shapwick Heath but I reckon you’d need a week at least to explore both places thoroughly and at all times of the day.

170612 RSPB Ham Wall

Most of the birds were rather distant so you’ll have to excuse my poor photos but I was able to see the birds clearly as many of the bird club members have good ’scopes and were happy to share. Some birding highlights were:

* three species of Egret: Cattle, Little and lots of Great whites.

170612 Little egret & Glossy ibis

* my first sightings of a Glossy ibis (seen here with a Little egret) and a Red-footed falcon

* more Bitterns than you could point a lens at and several beautiful Marsh harriers, gliding seemingly effortlessly over the reed beds. These two birds came into conflict at one point (fuzzy photo above right), with the Bittern presumably trying to defend its young against harrier predation.

170612 Baby Mute swans

* lots of babies, including those of Great crested and Little grebes, Mute swan, Tufted duck, Coot and Blackcap.

170612 Black-tailed godwits

* the Black-tailed godwits flying over the waters at Shapwick Heath.

On the way home, with the help of my car mates, I came up with an as-yet-unconfirmed list of 57 species seen on the day, and that was only the birds – more on the other creatures in tomorrow’s blog.