14th December 2014 – A quiet weekend after Poland. I spent a few hours doing my local patch at Staunton Harold with the highlights being a large flock of around 40 Redpolls, amongst which I discovered at least 4 Mealies. A couple of drake Goldeneye still around, 5 Little Grebe, 9 Teal, 5 Wigeon and a fly-over adult Yellow-legged Gull. The feeding station was active but no sign of the male Tree Sparrow. Robin – Staunton Harold reservoir, Derbyshire – Tony Davison© Nuthatch – Staunton Harold Reservoir, Derbyshire – Tony Davison© House Sparrow– male – Above two images – Staunton Harold […]
During the past week there have been many reports of Little Auk along the east coast of England. It has been many years since there has been a a so called “wreck” of Little Auk and I haven’t seen one of these enigmatic birds for many years. As these little Auks from the high Arctic were still being discovered, we decided on Saturday 22nd November, to head-off to the north east coast, South Gare, Redcar and Hartlepool, in the hope of finding one. Despite trying, I was out of luck but at Hartlepool we did have some excellent close quarter […]
On Thursday 30th October 2014, the 3rd record for Britain of Eastern Crowned Warbler was discovered. My adrenalin rushed for the second time this year. It was found by a local birder in a small copse adjacent to a Hotel and Golf Course comples near the village of Brotton, Cleveland. I had to wait until today,(Saturday 1st November) and fortunately the bird was still present for around 100 well behaved birders to view it. In beautiful weather, for the time of year, the Eastern Crowned Warbler performed, on and off to a very appreciative audience, throughout the day. We watched […]
Sunday 13th October 2014 and in foggy conditions Glyn, Richard and myself set-off for Donna Nook on the North East Lincolnshire coast. Our target bird was an Arctic Warbler that had been discovered on Saturday 12th October 2014. It is not very often that an Arctic Warbler is discovered away from the Shetland Isles and Isles of Scilly, where they are traditionally found most autumns. After a two hour drive, we arrived to fine sunny weather and the bird was posing nicely in hawthorn bushes not far from the car park. After several hours watching the bird, we decided to […]