2020, Birds, Birds of 2020, Mammals, Snow Leopard, Trips

My Quest for the Ghost Cat

For many years now a personal obsession of mine has been to see a Snow Leopard and my first attempt to see this animal commenced last year. During late July into early August 2019, I spent two weeks in Mongolia with Wise Birding Holidays. Our first week was spent entirely in the south Gobi Altai […]

2019, Birds, Flowers, Orchids, Trips, Year

Magical Orchids

During the past few days I have spent sometime with local Orchids and have seen 1 new species and 1 new variant of Bee Orchid, Wasp Orchid. All with a few miles or so of my house. I even found a Common Spotted Orchid growing in one of the lawns at the front of my

2019, Birds, Birds of 2019, Trips, Year

A Day Twitching in Yorkshire

A few good birds were available in Yorkshire this weekend, so a day twitching on Sunday was a wise move. A male Black-headed Bunting and a female Subalpine Warbler sp, had been discovered at Flamborough Head, whilst a Great Reed Warbler was continuing to sing and show at Wintersett Reservoir, near Barnsley. The Subalpine Warbler,

2019, Birds, Birds of 2019, Trips, Year

Rare Warbler visits local Reserve

A Savi’s Warbler, a rare summer migrant that breeds in Eastern Europe, has arrived at Attenborough Nature Reserve in Nottinghamshire. It has been present, showing well on occasions and singing regularly now, for over a week. The bird is favouring a small area of reed bed in front of the Tower Hide that overlooks Clifton

2019, Birds, Birds of 2019, Trips, Year

Spring Migrants at Local Reserve

Willington Gravel Pits, lies alongside the River Trent near Repton in South Derbyshire. The site is now a Derbyshire Wildlife Reserve but for many, many years has been well known for being a great local birding spot. Over the years it has had some superb birds and I can recall one of my best finds

2019, Birds, Birds of 2019, Trips, Year

Dowitcher Plays Hard to Get

Saturday 13th April I made a visit to one of my favourite RSPB Reserves, Frampton Marsh, near Boston in Lincolnshire. A Long-billed Dowitcher has wintered at the reserve and had been showing regularly in recent days. The bird is now moulting into summer plumage, so was worth the visit. Despite our efforts, we failed to

2019, Birds, Birds of 2019, Trips, Year

The Butcher Bird

A Great Grey Shrike has been wintering at the National Trust’s Clumber Park, in Nottinghamshire. It has been favouring an area called South Lawns, a reasonable walk from the visitor centre car park.  I managed to see the bird on Friday 15th March in extremely windy conditions. It was quite challenging for taking photographs and

2019, Birds, Birds of 2019, Trips, Year

A few days in the Scottish Highlands

I spent the 24th – 26th February in the Scottish Highlands with professional photographer, Pete Walkden. The plan was to photograph Crested Tit, but due to exceptionally mild weather, our plans had to change. Crested Tits will only come to feeding stations in cold weather. Once the weather becomes warm, they take to the tree

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