{"id":18342,"date":"2017-02-25T16:54:03","date_gmt":"2017-02-25T16:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/?p=18342"},"modified":"2017-02-25T16:54:03","modified_gmt":"2017-02-25T16:54:03","slug":"med-gulls-green-arrows-and-a-blue-thrush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/med-gulls-green-arrows-and-a-blue-thrush\/","title":{"rendered":"Med Gulls, Green Arrows and a Blue Thrush"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just back from a few days away in Dorset, staying at one of our favourite places on the Studland peninsular<\/strong><\/span>. Only away a couple of nights, so not a great deal of time to do any proper birding and we also caught the tail end of Storm Doris on Thursday 23rd Feb. Despite a lovely day of blue skies and sunshine, the wind was a real pain and so I didn’t even try looking for Dartford Warbler and Woodlark. Instead I spent some time photographing the many Mediterranean Gulls<\/span> that were sheltering in Studland Bay off Middle Beach and watching Ring-necked Parakeets<\/span> flying over our hotel gardens, uttering their loud screeching call and looking just like Green Arrows. I did manage an hour or so birding on Thursday afternoon and on the beach and in the bay and surrounding area, the highlights were a single Rock Pipit<\/span>, 4 Red-breasted Merganser, 3 Black-necked Grebe<\/span>, 3 distant divers which I presumed were Red-throated Diver, at least 70 Mediterranean Gull<\/span>, 6 Little Egret, many Teal, Wigeon, Mallard, Shelduck and small numbers of Pintail. Waders were represented by Oystercatcher, Curlew, Redshank and Black-tailed Godwit.<\/p>\n

On the journey back home yesterday (24th February), I decided to divert via Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire to see the overwintering Blue Rock Thrush. The bird has been frequenting gardens on a housing estate for several months now and as I was passing the area, it seemed to make sense to call in and have a look at it. Well, it took me a good half to three quarters of an hour to find it. Obviously very few birders visiting the site now and the bird seems to be moving around a much larger area of the estate. I was about to give up and head back to the car, when I heard a short sharp, single flutey call note, uttered twice, then suddenly the Blue Rock Thrush<\/span><\/strong> was perched on top of a roof right opposite me. It showed well in the sunshine for several minutes, before flying off over roof tops to a distant tree. Job done, time to head back home after a lovely few days away. So a few year ticks taking my Year List on to 148.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\" \"\" \"\"<\/p>\n

Blue Rock Thrush<\/strong> – above 3 images – adult male – Stow-on-the-Wold – Tony Davison\u00a9<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\" \"\"<\/p>\n

Mediterranean Gull<\/strong> – above 2 same bird – 1st winter – Middle Beach, Studland, Dorset – Tony Davison\u00a9<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mediterranean Gull<\/strong> – different 1st winter – Middle Beach, Studland, Dorset – Tony Davison\u00a9<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mediterranean Gull<\/strong> – Adult nearly moulted into full summer – Middle Beach, Studland, Dorset – Tony Davison\u00a9<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mediterranean Gull<\/strong> – Another adult nearly in summer plumage – Middle Beach, Studland, Dorset – Tony Davison\u00a9<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mediterranean Gull<\/strong> – 2nd winter – Middle Beach, Studland, Dorset – Tony Davison\u00a9<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\" \"\"\"\" \"\"<\/p>\n

Mediterranean Gull<\/strong> – Above 4 images – same 1st winter – Middle Beach, Studland, Dorset – Tony Davison\u00a9 – Shame about the Darvic Ring but I liked the flight poses.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just back from a few days away in Dorset, staying at one of our favourite places on the Studland peninsular. Only away a couple of nights, so not a great deal of time to do any proper birding and we also caught the tail end of Storm Doris on Thursday 23rd Feb. Despite a lovely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[644,18,643,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-644","category-birds","category-birdsof2017","category-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}