ilkly

ilkly this afternoon:

1 rat showed up in the wall
1 mandarin doing its little cheep
20 mallards being mishcheivous and always looking out for bread.
5 pigeons
7 woodpigeos in the trees not doing much just sitting
3 farm ducks
1 grey wagtail

good day seen lots of nice things

bolton abby

saw 2 goosander and 1 heron this morning. dipper was showing well diving off the rocks into the water and swiming. mallards and jackdaws also present.

lapwings

saw some lapwingsa flying over keithly this morning. near the motorbike dirt rally area

soil hill

quick but good look at soil hill with a kestrel to show for it.also when we came home the sparrowhawk was in the trees of our neighbourghs gardens

church

saw a pair of long tailed tits in the graveyard today

weasle

saw 1 really close and a fabulous view at ogden poking its head out of the wall. i was just feeding a robin by hand (my first ever passerine feeding of my hand) when my brother said awwww cant i have a go so i was momenterally distracted and saw its rump go down the back of the wall and come out of one of the crannies.

redwings

saw 2 on our way home from church out of the car window feeding on the ground. cool becuase they are only my srd ever(flock)

goosander

saw one fly up off the canal as we drove through hebden bridge on our way to the Graden center. dead pleased with that as it is my first in calderdale and probably only my 5th ever anyway. also 9 mipits in the feild opposit my house feeding very colse to the fence. this is a good sign because we havn't had these before so it could be a good birdwatching december.

brian saves the day

the mystery partridges were gray ones only my second time. thanks Brian for helping with that

soil hill: the dark side

a bitter night for a walk with below freezing temperatures and nothing up there how could it have got any worse. well there could have been nothing at all. we (my dad and i) did see 3 medow pipits and 5 mystery partridges which thinking back were probably red legged. im suprised anything can live up there with all the snow and frost.

my dad tought me something really cool. if you throw a rock up in the air over a frozen pool when it comes down then it will land wedged in the ice. cool huh

feildfare

saw 1 fly over the car on my way to school. best bird so far on my way to or from or at school ever

goldeneye

saw 1 lone male at ogden which is unusual because at this time of year there was always a male and a female. heard the cawing of a jay and then saw its suilluette in the trees.

best part of the day was when 2 birds were seen scrapping (well 1 chasing the other) and the the chaser suddenly it came out from the bush and flew a mere 60cm above my head. it was a male sparrowhawk and the bird it was chaseing was ablackbird.

short eared owl

saw 1 this morning guess where soil hill. 1 was flushed making it my third new bird in 3 days all at the same site. now that is something. only 1 more resident british owl to go

same day different bird

i cant belive it. not only my first jack snipe but 1 text from brian and now 3 snow buntings on the same patch on the same day. all in winter plumage 3. snow buntings are coming in a lot be
cause their on migration so with luck we will see more in days to come

jack snipe

saw 1 up on soil hill at 9.30 this morning also presant were golden plover, meadow pipits, sparrowhawk, magpie and 6 red legged partridges. jack snipe by far the best bird. my personal first.

feildfares, golden plover and grey partridge

what more is there to say realy thats what there ws and man there was some fab views througt the bins. golden plovers flew around for a while before finally settleing. feildfare about 5 were all around in the srub.

ring ouzel update

the guys said that it could be but gave me some other suggestions. niether of their suggestions matched the laser gun element i heard in the call of the birds however i read that ring ouzels were smaller than blackbirds so it could'nt have been them because these were much larger. so we'll leave it here. also i forgot to put this on the 24th section of hte holiday but a large flock of redwings flew over walla crag when i was looking at the whinchat (robin, stonechat, medow pipit)

other holiday pics

last day

nothing much today just the usual but i did see a merganser and then just as we were leaving 2 more cam down from up rivewr. this wasnt on derwntwater i might add it was on abbleside near grassmere. also saw a dipper ( all the merganser photos are the same bird)

24th second to last day in lakeland

whinchat my first on walla crag


medow pipit on walla crag




coot



common or mew gull


lesser black backed gull being mobbed by a black headed in winter plumage



cropped version of the above can you tell







also saw 1 wigeon and a stonechat on top of walla crag. the wigeon was on the resovoir and the lesser black backed gull showed well today again so well infact thjat i didnt even have to use my bins to get these fab photos.

23rd of october

juvenile herring gull


lesser black backed gull


moorhen


common gull blured for the same reason

this was the best day we also saw the red breatsed merganser twice and huge numbers of pheasnts unfortunetly there was no camera on hand at that moment

22nd october still in lakeland

we went to mayport today to look at the aquarium if you want to see some of the best fish photos here they are.

anyway back to the point the birds. we went for a walk on the headland and we saw

5 redshank

100 greylag geese

2 greater black backed gull

1 kingfisher

1 common gull

50 herring gull

1 whimbrel

1 common ringed plover

it was a good day but the bird that won it all ahd to be the ringed plover because they are just so charming.

my holiday in lakeland 21st october

2 jackdaws on a weather vane

red breasted merganser
other birds seen of particular interest were as follows
20 cormorants
2 chaffinches
1 nuthatch
1 moorhen
2 coot
5 blackbirds
20 robins
1 great tit
30 black-headed gulls
1 common gull
50 canada geese
60 greylag geese
2 coal tit
30 mallards
2 muscovy
1 greenfinch

ring ouzel

just put a post on calderdale birds so we'll see what they think 99% sure that it was but not 100%. it would be nice if it was though.

sparrowhawk

saw one flying over illingworth and then i saw an adult male at the bird table. unfortunetly i didnt relise but as soon as i did it had gone. he didnt catch anything and if he did then he took it with him or perhaps he just wanted some bread we put out for the starlings. also besides the starling nest i found in the school wall and in my roof now i have found a sparrows nest in the top corner of my school about 20m up. thats 3 october nests.

soil hill and the mipit invasion

went up to soil hill this afternoon. practicaly killed ourselves trying to see a snipe which we failed to do. also hundereds of mipits. also at the site was 1 weatear, lots of linnets, 4 kestrels and a sparrowhawk female possibly the one we have had in the garden on previous occasions. also met brian sumner also birdwatching.

other photos of r.b.m

ok these wenrt my pics but were the same 2 birds at ogden only they were taken yesterday through a digiscope. now these are much better than my pics

red breasted merganser

the last 2 pics are a bit small because their quaility wasnt very good so they look better smaller. they were both red breasted mergansers at ogden. 2 females both photos were taken at the tower. also a robin in the garden. its a pic so i thought id put it on for the sake of it.

white wagtail

saw a white wagtail on the way home from town today being chased by a pied. flew overhead so no pictures but plenty more should come through

hello hello hello

the birds came to the garden again mainly spparows but also our 2 local collard doves did you know that collard doves only came to britain 50 years ago and loads of twitchers flocked down to norfolk where they were and now there all over the place fancy that

sparrowhawk in my garden

ok this wasnt today but friday anyway it was still a good bird and a record to keep an eye on

willow tit

saw willow tit at Elland gravel pits. My first this year. i hope to see more as the year progresses

september the 3rd

black redstart soil hill good views 3rd time like
no pictures

Birds Already Seen

Egyptian Goose

-Black Guillemot

-Roseate Tern

Barnacle Goose

Other birds I have seen but failed to take a photo of are

-Hen Harrier - Kintyre, July

-Shore Lark - Norfolk, February

-Glaucous gull - Norfolk, February

-Little Gull - Kintyre, July

-Manx Shearwater - Kintyre, July

-Peregrine 

-Grey Partridge

-White Fronted Geese - Norfolk, February

-Grey plover - Norfolk, February

-Golden plover - Norfolk February

-Reed warbler

-Sedge warbler

-Greenshank - Filey Dams, 

-Barn owl - Filey Dams,

-Common sandpiper

-Tawny owl

-Great northern diver - Kintyre, July

-Egyptian goose - Norfolk,
-Woodcock - Foxglove Covert,

-Purple Sandpiper
-Water Pipit - Fairburn Ings