24 December, 2010

Y'all Folks Have a Nice Christmas Now

Y'all Folks Have a Nice Christmas Now

Well, it's Christmas Eve, and I've just found a window of opportunity to sneak away from the family to show you a picture of a Robin, a Woodpecker and a Parakeet I took in... yes, you guessed it, Bushy Park; my second home (after my bed, and the sofa... though not necessarily in that order) earlier today- what with it being Christmas Eve, I just managed to resist the urge for a long distance twitch.
There was still quite a large amount of snow in the park, and instead of following the well trodden down paths around the ponds, I decided to go off road into the remote, snowy grassland, following remote, wild deer tracks... Bear Grylls doesn't do shizzle like this!

Wrens were calling in the dead ferns, and a Green Woodpecker was digging around for ants. It was too cold for fieldcraft, so a photo was a no-go, but here's one I made earlier, taken in Richmond Park, in February a few moons ago...


In the woodland gardens, a Ring-necked Parakeet was decorating its hole in the tree ready for the big day, and amongst a foraging tit flock, a Robin was pecking around in the leaf litter.


I guess all thats left to say now is for you to have a very...


Oh, and one last thing. I know how much you have been eagerly awaiting the results to my 'Do You Twitch Rare Birds?' poll that I put up in the right column of the blog. Ok, here goes... the results are in, and it appears that the average birder twitches......... but not often. Ten people voted (cheers) so you can bet on it being an accurate reflection. Just something to ponder on whilst trying to cope with the in-laws over the festive period. Bye now.

15 December, 2010

Not Quite As Good As Waxwings

Not Quite As Good As Waxwings

After the other day's excitement of a whole post on something slightly interesting, I decided to bring myself back to good old reality with a trip to one of my two only favourite local patches, Home Park (like Bushy Park, but smaller and with some big Hampton Court Palace thing or something at one end).

Home Park has the advantage over Bushy Park of being much less busier, and this is reflected in the birds being slightly more obliging. Being covered in ant hills and short grassland, the park is home to a thriving population of Green Woodpecker, and its hard to walk a few paces without sending one screeching into the air. Here's one chilled...


Rick's Pond usually holds a large number of waterfowl, but with the pond thickly frozen over, there wasn't much. A Mute Swan was preening however (I know, heart racing stuff)...


It was a different story on the drainage pond nearbly, where the water was ice-free and so contained a large concentration of ducks, including a nice flock of Gadwall which, as I walked up to expecting to recieve pleading quacks for bread, flew off to the other side of the pond and never let me get close. Two female Shoveler were also giving me the slip.
Have you ever seen a better photograph of a Shoveler or Gadwall? I think not.


Heres a Mallard for your troubles...


And some more Swans...

05 December, 2010

Waxwings, Teddington, Ticked

Waxwings, Teddington, Ticked

After dashing out yesterday evening and dipping a flock of 19 Waxwings down the road in Teddington, I was getting desperate to glimpse these exotic gems in Surrey, after also dipping the flock in Epsom a few weeks back.

Now, one dip I can handle, but two dips and its getting personal, so it was another early morning for a bicycle twitch, with Teddington being just a few miles down the road, to hopefully catch up with yesterday's missed birds.

Things weren't looking promising when, no sooner had I got onto the bike, I already had a stitch, and with the temperature reading a figure that wouldn't seem out of place on a weather station out in Antarctica, my usual Sunday morning routine of a sofa, a duvet and Match of the Day seemed extremely tempting. Luckily though, with the help of a life-saving Crunchy bar keeping my chocolate levels stable, I managed to resist the urge, and made it to the hopefully Waxwing infested road by an impressive time of 9am...


A small crowd of Waxwing admirers had gathered along the road; a good sign I thought, and no sooner had I turned the corner, and I already had brilliant views of the birds as the whole flock lifted up into a nearby tree...



What is a Waxwing without a berry bush?


In flight, and especially when silhouetted, the Waxwing looks very like your average Starling, and it can be surprisingly hard to tell the two species apart... these are Waxies...


Finally, I've connected with the Waxwing, and by the looks of things it might not be my last this year, with quite a few birds making their way down south in this irruption of a year for the species.

Oh, and yes, the photos you see have been taken by me, and yes they really are that stunning. I was thinking of entering them into a few competitions, but I think I'll let someone else get first 1st place for once.

04 December, 2010

Cold Weather Movement

Cold Weather Movement

It was an early morning internet search to find college closed due to 'adverse weather conditions' yesterday. There is nothing I hate more than an early morning, and you'd have thought that with most of my life spent waking up early for school, that I'd have got used to it, but I haven't. So it's really is amazing how those three words- 'college will be closed'- can transform my morning mood from :( to : D

It took an unprecedented amount of self determination and dedication to stop myself from falling back into bed, but I managed to dragged myself out into the garden for some early morning snowtography with the birds, before the texts started to come in luring me to the local patch, to indulge in a different kind of hobby from birding.

Even watching the garden birds from my camouflage cape (latest fashion) for an hour, it was amazing to see a small scale cold weather movement take place right in front of my eyes. As you can probably guess, a cold weather movement is when species move from one place to another due to extreme weather. In my case its probably just from the local woods. Chaffinches are rarities here that usually only appear as singles every winter, but this morning there were 6 feeding. After the return of a female Blackcap the other day, the male has now joined her, and 7 Redwings dropped in to the garden to feed, as well as an additional 4 Blue tits to the normal pair that are around, and a relatively secretive Song Thrush.

Despite all the action, most of the birds were a slight bit camera shy. Luckily, the Blue tits were out in style, and were doing what Blue tits do best; being curious!

This years Christmas card? I think so... you can buy one off me for £50 a print... I need all the money I can get with these new University fee rises...


They were fiddling around in every nook and cranny they could find....


Everybody say ahhh...

01 December, 2010

Field Sketches

Field Sketches

Hide your wife, conceal your kids and lock your doors......... it's snowing.

Yeap, the white stuff has finally made its mark on the South East, in the form of the worst snowfall here since the last one last year. It was a struggle, it was a real struggle, but I just managed to get through the day, and I even went outside, despite the BBC telling me to stay indoors... I'm bad.

Sarcasm aside though, and I really like snow. Of course, its fun, but it also brings in the birds. Just from watching the garden for half an hour this morning, I managed a record high of 3... yes, 3 Chaffinches feeding in the Pyracantha, the 3rd recorded Song Thrush and a returning female Blackcap, that hasn't been seen here for 2 years- hopefully she'll stay for the winter and bring her husband along too. Of course, the birds don't have as much fun in this weather, and so it is important that you keep feeding them with high energy foods.

What with one college lesson at mid-day, the usual thing happened when I'm at home for most of the day; I found myself doing nothing for ages. One minute it was 10am, and the next minute it was 11. It's like when you give yourself an extra 5 minutes in bed, which quickly turn into an extra few hours. I soon became bored of a Geography essay on whether Mexican migration to America is beneficial or not, and found myself looking through a few more blogs than usual. One in particular caught my eye- Steward's 'From the Notebook'- and in particular his brilliant sketches of birds that he scans in off his notebook and posts on the blog.

Now I'm not usually an artistic kind of guy, but when I can be bothered, I try (and usually fail) to do a few sketches of some interesting birds I find myself watching- it helps me to brush up on my ID skills, should I happen to stumble across a rare bird whilst walking through Bushy Park.

Inspired by Steward's brilliant sketches, I decided to scan in a few of my own sketches for a laugh- I don't know what it is but I quite like peeking into other people's notebooks to see how they record.
Because you could get better out of giving a crayon to a 5 month of baby, I've added captions so you can identify each scribble...

White-throated Sparrow, 13/4/09 (Old Winchester Hill, Hants). A real beauty, and my first proper twitch...


Red-necked Grebe, 20/11/10 (Puttenham, Surrey)...


Lapland Bunting, 23/10/10 (Staines Reservoir, Surrey). A very smart looking bunting which showed brilliantly...


In other news, the Redcrestufted Duck (Red-crested Pochard x Tufted Duck) was strutting its stuff in Bushy Park the other day. However drunk, stoned or generally confused the parents were at the time of deciding to mix and match the looks of their offspring, I've got to give it to them, they really have created a smart looking duck and I hope it stays for the winter...


With more snow forecasted for tonight, the weather doesn't look like its going to get any better before it gets worse, or you could say it does look like its going to get better before it gets worse, depending on how you view snow. Bird wise, it could bring in something good into Bushy, like a Pomarine Skua, or Thayer's Gull, but then it also kills birds, and stops birders from birding... both of which are bad.

'Snow: good or bad? Discuss'... my next essay title, expect a downloadable version tomorrow morning.