My annual trip to Unst took place during 23rd September to 1st October. Our first port of call on arrival into Lerwick was at Gulberwick on mainland, for a smart drake Surf Scoter. Unfortunately too far to photograph. On arrival on Unst our first decent bird was a Woodchat Shrike at Feall, then followed by […]
Always worth a visit to the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust Reserve at Willington Wetlands. I’ve known this reserve for over 50 years, first visiting it as a young birder in my early teens. It’s changed a lot over the years and I’m not so sure its as good as it once was for attracting waders and
Another visit to the wonderful RSPB reserve at Frampton in Lincolnshire. A few good waders around on this trip including a Pectoral Sandpiper, several Curlew Sandpiper, Little Stint, Greenshank and the usual other common waders. A huge flock of Black-tailed Godwits was quite a spectacular sight. Also 46 Spoonbill, probably a record count for the
A Greater Sand Plover was discovered on the beach at Redcar, Cleveland on 25th August. At the time I didn’t realise, but I had only seen one previously, and that was back in the 80’s, so long overdue. I decide to go for it on 27th August and the bird was showing reasonably well on
August is a good time to visit Frampton, as usually there is a wide selection of waders on view. This particular visit gave me some good opportunities to photograph the Spotted Redshank, along with Ruff, Avocet and also a large flock of Spoonbills.
It’s not often I make a return visit to photograph a bird that I have done previously, but I made an exception with the Turkistan (Red-tailed) Shrike at Bempton Cliffs. I was a little disappointed with the visit I made on the 2nd July, a few days after it had been found, as the bird
I made another visit to Bulgaria with my good friend Barrie Staley. We arranged our own trip and planned it with the Bulgarian Friendship Society. The dates were 12th July to 20th July to hopefully coincide with one or two special butterflies, including Balkan Blue. We visited a number of familiar sites that we had
In late June I joined an organised visit to see an extremely rare British orchid, the Red Helleborine. It is very unpredictable in its flowering time and we visited on the 29th June, which was just about perfect on this occasion. It is now thought to be restricted to just three sites in southern England.
