We are only a couple of days into 2014 but it is going quite well so far. I have spent time with friends and relatives, made a profit on betting, had some walks, eaten well and drunk well too – if only I had won the Really Nasty Horse Racing Game in the first few…
Tag: Stanwick Lakes
An oldie and a baddie.
There were two copies of The Oldie in Avery Towers over Christmas and everyone who glanced at either of them noticed that ‘That man Ingrams is moaning about Red Kites again’. Richard Ingrams has form on this subject but this time he seems to be blaming the decline of the Kestrel on Red Kites. Actually…
Old squaw in east Northants
It’s not every day that you see a globally threatened bird species in Northants. And it’s not every day that you see a sea-duck in Northants. So you can appreciate that it isn’t even every other day that you see both rolled into one – a Long-tailed Duck in east Northants. However, there have been…
Summoned by gulls
Gulls used to be quite dull and quite simple. When I grew up, there were basically a couple of black-backs, Herring, Common and Black-headed (and Kittiwake on distant coasts and Little Gull if you were very lucky). All of these gulls were pretty common so there wasn’t much to be gained by being a gull-expert…
Writing to my MP – 1
I’ve been telling people that they should write to their MPs as I travel around the country giving talks. Politics is at the heart of almost all solutions to environmental problems. So, I wouldn’t ask you to do it if I wouldn’t do it myself, so here is the first of monthly letters that I…
Minox review (and challenge)
Regular readers will remember that Minox sent me a pair of binoculars to review and that they will be auctioned on this site in the next few weeks and the money will go to the wildlife conservation charity of your choice. So what do I make of the Minox 10x43HD binoculars? I have become quite…
Pigeons and doves
I went out for a walk on Monday morning and as I parked the car at 0710 a large flock of pigeons flew past. Just Woodpigeons, nothing very special, but hundreds of them so quite interesting. And then another flew past, and another and I started counting. In 15 minutes c5000 birds flew past; and…
My swifts
They’ve gone for this year. It’s been such a lovely summer since I got back from the USA in late June. 2013 has been a butterfly year in the garden with lots of large and small whites and a few green-veined whites too. Also peacocks, meadow browns, gatekeepers and a single female common blue. My…
Guest Blog – Why I don’t submit records to Birdtrack by Keith Bennett
Keith is an academic at Queen’s University Belfast, living in Kircubbin on the Ards peninsula, Northern Ireland. His research and teaching focus on ecological and evolutionary responses of organisms to the climate changes of the ice ages (the last couple of million years). He enjoys watching birds anywhere, any time, from the first bird he…
So that was April
As we entered April I hadn’t seen a spring migrant so I have spent the month catching up. I have now seen most of the returning spring migrants that i would expect to see locally with the exceptions of garden warbler, lesser whitethroat and hobby. My first swift on Saturday, at my local patch of…