Crossbills

This year I worked on a small project with one of my favourite birds - the crossbill. I was blessed to have them nesting just 200m from my house in a small collection of pines, though due to their extremely secretive nature I only even discovered them once the juvenile had fledged! I had seen a a pair earlier in the year but presumed them to be passage birds! Thankfully the juvenile was unable to fly at the time of discovery to so there was sufficient evidence to suggest they had nested close-by.

The juvenile bird.

Once I had discovered the birds, it was a question of photographing them. Being pine-seed feeders they never fed below the 50m canopy of the pine trees and so I set myself a challenge. After doing a lot of research I learnt that due to their somewhat dry diet they require large quantities of water; so I promptly set about flooding small patches of woodland...to no avail! After a little while I discovered why, the birds had already found a watering hole in the most desirable place imaginable - the pavement! A leaking water main had caused a fraction of water to spill on the concrete and this proved irresistible to the crossbills!

Long waits were required (not great during GCSEs!) but thankfully the local Goldcrest gave me some company...

The pavement was hardly the most natural of areas but it was still a rare chance to see these beautiful birds up close!

Female Crossbill

Female Crossbill

Male Crossbill

I was really after some shots off the concrete but as time moved on, so did the crossbills; the juvenile was soon flying well and so the birds really had no reason to stay. This shot of the male is all I managed:

As always thanks for reading!

Portland Bill

A slightly rushed post this unfortunately that will include some photography and birding elements to it (mainly the latter!) as for the past 4 nights I have been staying at the Portland Bird Observatory. The weather was sunny which was great for everyone except those who wanted to see some birds and the wind direction was hopeless...still I saw a lot of species that in my neck of the woods would be amazingly rare.

On all 4 days numbers of Yellow Wagtails (peaking at 200) and Wheatear (peaking at 150) were impressive and far better than the odd two or three I see on my local patch!

Wheatear

Wheatear (it was interesting to note the extreme variation among this species)

Ravens were widespread and Little Owls we fairly common amongst the many quarries on the island...

Raven

Little Owl

Right now onto some migrants!

A nightingale was present throughout my stay though as always with this species proved very elusive.

Nightingale

Nightingale

It is astonishing to think that this small butterfly has possibly flown all the way from Southern Europe!

Clouded Yellow

Whilst seeing species in the hand is never as good as in the field, it was great to have the opportunity to see the birds up close.

By far my favourite part of the trip was the sea-watching. For photography it was absolutely useless (I really need to go on a pelagic trip!) but for birding it offered two lifers for me and some fairly close views of both. 

Balearic Shearwater passage was slow for the first couple of days but by the end of the week was amazing, with 382 counted on my final day (a portland record?). This is a species the IUCN view as 'critically endangered' so to see this number (sometimes in flocks of over 50 birds was really quite remarkable!)....

Balearic Shearwater

Balearic Shearwater

Balearic Shearwater (!!)

It's always nice to find your own birds and on Friday evening, whilst photographing the Balearics I was astonished to find this Long-Tailed Skua flying around offshore. Typically no-one else was around to enjoy this bird!

Long-Tailed Skua

Long-Tailed Skua

And finally to finish off some half-decent photographs of two species I have never really photographed well before, the Linnet and Kestrel...

Kestrel

Linnet

Linnet

Just a quick thank you to the Portland Bird Observatory for their great hospitality and company, as well as the BTO who funded me for this trip... I will no doubt be returning next year! As always thanks for reading!

Back in a Week!

I am off to Shropshire/Wales next week with targets including Siskins and Red Kites, plus if I am lucky a White-Faced Darter. I have been doing a lot of wok with butterflies and dragonflies lately, as well as photographing a Sandwich Tern colony. A full blog post will be posted in a couple of weeks or so but for now here are a couple of teasers!

Sandwich Tern

Purple Emperor

Finally, a few weeks ago I had my first article published in RSPB Phoenix Magazine; the article can hopefully be read here.

As always thanks for reading!