I think not – in our modern birding scene, so much emphasis seems to be made on rare birds, it seems to me that we can easily pass by the common stuff. I spent a few enjoyable hours on Saturday 16th April, within 10 minutes from home, just watching common birds. I don’t think they’re boring at […]

On Sunday 6th March, I spent a pleasurable hour at my nearby National Trust Country Park at Calke Abbey, Ticknall. During the winter there has been plenty of activity at one of the bird feeding stations in the park. Having recently returned from a hectic business trip to Hong Kong, I can’t think of a

Barrie, RichardJ and I had made plans to make our first visit to Norfolk for 2016 this weekend and despite the poor weather forecast for Saturday, we decide to go. Another weekend and more cold grey weather making photography very difficult. At least it remained dry, which gave us a great chance to catch-up with some

Sunday morning and I was up early to meet up with RichardP. We had decided to try and photograph some Brambling and Siskin at a local South Derbyshire country park. We were not disappointed and in glorious sunshine, there was plenty of activity. We had around half a dozen Brambling, including several moulting males. Only

Saturday 13th February, we decided to head off to Hornsea Mere to try and get some pictures of a long staying drake Long-tailed Duck. Hornsea Mere is a large natural lake, covering around 580 acres, with around 300 acres of open water and after searching for four hours, we simply couldn’t find the “Old Squaw”.

Saturday 30th January 2016 and Glyn, Richard and I made a visit to Cleethorpes Country Park in Lincolnshire, to see 2 species of grebe that are scarce winter visitors. To see them both on one small lake was exceptional, especially as they were very confiding individuals. A Red-necked Grebe and two Slavonian Grebe performed very well

Glyn, Richard and myself visited Hartlepool, Teeside on 16th January 2016, to photograph the Juvenile Glaucous Gull that had been frequenting the Marina at Jackson’s Landing. The bird had been showing very well and so it was a good opportunity to see one of these “High Arctic” Gulls at close quarters. One of the first

Whilst watching the juvenile Glaucous Gull on Saturday 16th January at Jackson’s Landing, Hartlepool, I couldn’t resist the opportunity of photographing an array of young Herring Gulls, in various ages of plumage. From 1st winter through to adults and also, most probably, of the two sub-species that we get in Britain during the winter. The