In 2017 the first pair of Pallid Harriers to nest in western Europe was reported from the Netherlands (see here). After no further nesting in the Netherlands in 2018 it might have seemed that this was a remarkable and amazing one-off event but the evidence is that Pallids are spreading west, not so slowly but…
Category: VERY BIRDY: birdwatching and birding nattering
Garden birds July 2019
July was a month of warmth, heat and rain – like most months of the year really. Everything was growing like mad in the garden though. More a month for butterflies than birds with Meadow Browns, Gatekeepers and Ringlets joining the earlier species this month. On 31 July I recorded the garden’s first Painted Lady…
August Birdwatch
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August’s Birdwatch magazine arrived with me yesterday and I’ve already read lots of it – even though it is a bumper issue with 96 pages. There’s an interesting article on what I’m still going to call Marsh Harriers in normal speech (Western Marsh Harriers, more correctly these days) which reminds me that I probably saw…
Cattle Egrets breed in Northants
This blog is based on Mike Alibone’s blog on the same subject – a must read every week (or more) for Northants birders and with enough interesting information to be of wider than local interest. I’ve become a little blase about Cattle Egrets in the last 12 months as there have been regular sightings of…
Mystery birds (2)
I was sent this photo of a mystery bird photographed in a garden in Higham Ferrers (east Northants). It was seen, appropriately enough, on 4 July. I’ve seen this bird in the wild but never as well as this. I was sent a recording of its call too, and that pretty much nailed it.
Garden birds in June 2019
Where did June go? I know I was in Scotland for over a week (and you know I was there too as I wrote about the Flow Country here and here) but suddenly June is gone. I have added a species to my garden list for the year but not to the overall garden list…
A review paper in British Birds
Here are a few quotes from the paper; Since I am known for campaigning for a ban on driven grouse shooting, I should be clear that I am not in favour of banning Pheasant shooting. Pheasants are naturalised in all European countries except Iceland. The European population, as measured in spring by national bird monitoring…
June Birdwatch
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June’s Birdwatch is full of good stuff. This article about the World Land Trust‘s 30th anniversary is well worth a read, for example. There’s an identification guide to pratincoles which took me back to August 1973, I think it was 1973, when two friends and I found a Black-winged Pratincole in Norfolk. It must be…
Garden birds in May 2019
This year I am keeping a list of birds seen in or from my garden. I didn’t add any species for the year in May – which is a bit surprising. Although, I was in eastern Europe for a couple of weeks so this was really a half-month! However, it is a sad sign of…
Red Kite
Just down the road from where I live there is a Red Kite sitting on eggs. If you stop the car by the side of the narrow road and look across a very narrow field there’s the bird on its nest – almost at eye level because of the lie of the land. I’ve stopped…