Tag: Tim Melling

  Tim writes:  Common Sandpipers are quite unusual among British waders as they are almost entirely summer breeding visitors from sub-Saharan Africa.  Most of Britain’s wading birds are winter visitors although quite a few also breed in Britain. The “kitty-needy-kitty-needy” flight call of the Common Sandpiper heralds the arrival of spring close to where I…

Tim writes:  I think this is the first time I have managed to capture the eye detail in a Buzzard, which is especially good as he’s looking right down at me.   Their plumage is variable and this is quite a pale individual, and identifiable as an adult by the thick, dark trailing edge to the…

  Tim writes: Photographs of Red Pandas in the wild are so rare I have decided to post a second photograph.  This one was high in a Berry tree, realising it was a little exposed as they normally feed on bamboo, so spend their time deep in bamboo thickets.  They venture out in the autumn,…

  Tim writes: to British birdwatchers this will look like the result of a unnatural union between a Robin and a Dunnock.  But this is actually a high altitude Himalayan Dunnock relative known as a Robin Accentor (Prunella rubeculoides), whose scientific name translates as Dunnock, like a Robin.  It looked and behaved just like a…

  Tim writes: the Collared Crow used to be common over large areas of lowland, rural China, just creeping into Vietnam.  But its numbers have tumbled over the past 15 years and is now only found commonly in a few areas in its former range.  Places that used to support hundreds of birds are now…