Standing up for Nature
In the May Birdwatch there are lots of good things – available in your newsagents now! I’ve seen a Little Gull, rather like the one on the cover of the magazine, at Stanwick Lakes already this year so I am already springing. Steven Moss rattles off a few bird names and where they…
I saw my first Swift of the year this morning at Stanwick Lakes. In fact it was my earliest record there since I started using Birdtrack in 2005. Spring really has arrived when the Swifts are back – although it was just the one for me this morning! And I still haven’t seen a House…
I heard my first Sedge Warbler of the year at Stanwick Lakes yesterday – and it wasn’t my only ‘first’. The weather forecast was a bit rubbish but it wasn’t raining when I made some tea at 0630 and so the aim was to get to Stanwick Lakes before the rain started. I almost didn’t…
I’m keeping a note of whether I see Red Kites on each day through the year – in March the tally has been 26 days out of 31. January: 22 days out of 31. February: 24 days out of 28. That makes 72 out of 90 overall. That’s an even higher strike rate than…
Thank you to everyone for your birthday wishes yesterday for me and my binoculars – we were together all day and had a good day’s birding at Titchwell RSPB reserve in Norfolk where the sun shone for all of our visit. In these days of social media I found I have birthday wishes arriving from…
April Birdwatch, in shops now, is a wildlife crime special with a guest editorial from Chris Packham, an article on wilful blindness by Ruth Tingay, an account of bird killing in the Lebanon by the Committee Against Bird Slaughter and an article on the work of Birders Against Wildlife Crime by Rob Sheldon. My monthly…
I’m keeping a note of whether I see Red Kites on each day through the year – in January I saw Red Kites on 22 days out of 31. February has had a higher strike rate – 24 out of 28 days.
Just for fun I am making a note of which days I see Red Kites this year because I often write that I see Red Kites most days and I just wanted to check whether it is true (or whether I am fooling myself) and if so, how true. I’m not going out of my…
I did the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch on Sunday morning while listening to Broadcasting House on Radio 4 and eating toast and Marmite. As I heard my former colleague Derek Niemann talking about his Nazi grandfather (see his moving and interesting book) I reached 5 species: Goldfinch, House Sparrow, Dunnock, Blackbird and Blue Tit. The…
The post came early enough this morning for me to grab the latest Birdwatch magazine (February) on my way out to the station. And I always first turn to my column to remind myself of what I wrote over a month ago – and so, by now, I’ve written another column (March) and am thinking…