day 2 of london holiday 6 march

went to windsor on our way to legoland today and bought myself a £20 1g memory card. naturally took no photos today although i did see i sparrowhawk.

there was also a duck in "miniland" it was in the region supposed to represent the netherlands thus there was lots of water, bridges and roads. the duck kept swimming through the small canals, crashing into lego boats, carging around the lego streets like godzilla and going under the brigdes as though they were not there. it was the best thing i saw the whole holiday.

day 1 of london holiday 5 april

went to kew gardens today. i had found out earlier that morning that i had left my memmory card to my computer at home. this is not a good start
today i saw:
1 gery heron
4 greylag geese
6 canada geese
2 egyptian geese with 3 chicks
11 ducklings (mallard)
2 gadwall (may be feral)
10 tufted duck
4 buzzard
1 golden pheasant thrilled to bits when i saw this, it called as i was walking by and then i saw it in a rhodedendren bush. it was a bright male and he struted out as though he owned the place. now if i had that camera............
7 helmated guineafowl (definatly feral)
100 moorhens
100 coot
1 greater black backed gull (on thames)
6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 woodpigeons
100 ring necked parakeet first new bird of the holidays. at the start i only saw them flying over but as the day progressed they started eating fruit in trees and managed to get really close to 1. they also started to fly round in larger flocks
7 green woodpecker really close
2 greater spotted woodpecker it had just chased of a green and then walked round that same tree and it was less than 1m above my head and was hammering away as though i was not there.
3 swallows (specks)
1 wren- having a wash
5 mistle thrushes
10 robins
11 blackbirds
1 blackcap
1 chiffchaff
1 goldcrest was flitting around under a tree and as i watched it, it came closer until i could touch it. all the time it was acting as though it was in the trees and it was the best thing i saw today
3 long tailed tit sat in a bush collecting nesting material less than 1m away. it was so beautiful, they wernt put off at all.
3 nuthatch really close
4 jays really tame

also found some great crested newts which were really beutilful in the water
it was a good start minus the obviuse. i already had my new bird (s).

swallow

the first swallow of spring and infact 2009 flew over my garden this morning
hope for a good year

ogden-saturday

a quiet morning with only the reident barnacle goose, 3 unusual goldeneyes 2male and 3 female and some ducks sat on the wall.

a thrilling week in the garden

siskin

happy mothers day

our resident frog. he went into the bottom pond which is staggnant and horrible and where the fish live. but on the third try of catching him to put him in the top pond it was a sucsess.

stonechat in the feild on tuesday

the resident mouse that lives in one of our columns

a garden visitor

ogden some time ago

some time in early febuary

the birds were sparse:

barnacle goose

black headed gulls

great tit

common gull

not much

hardcastle crags on sunday

on sunday the first 2nd sunday work party that i could do. we were emptying nestboxes at hardcastlecrags. the weather went like so:
sunny
cloudy
rainy
sleety
snowy
rainy
haily
sunny


heres me up a tree
about this time my form tutor walked past

at the pond i saw about 50 frogs in a pool 1m long by 1m wide. it was incredible to see. unfortunetly i didnt bring my new camera so no shots.

also 2 dippers chaseing each other up and down the river.

last day-wednesday 18th febuary 2009

went to leighton moss today as was promised and looked forward to seeing a possible bittern. as soon as we got there we went to the first hide for a look. i was first there and diddnt have the spotting scope and after scanning the reedbeds found nothing. then my dad arrived with the scope and after going over the reedbeds about 5 times i did actually find a bittern at the far side of the lake. it was very impressive although smaller than i expected red deer bullfinch cormorant goldeneye graylag geese teals pintail gadwall wigeon also seen today were: grey heron little egret caucasian pheasant a good holiday

tuesday 17 febuary 2009 day 3 of holiday

no idea what we were doing today so decided to go to a town which was small so didnt stay there. then we stumbled across a wildlife trust nature reserve so had a look around that with some impressive results

large twite flock

little egret

merlin yay my first ever. it flew right past us and i was suprised to see how small it is in comparison to a kestrel.

shoveler

canada geese

widgeon

shelduck

also there were:

inumerable herring gulls

2 skylark

5 semi-wild emperor geese

barnacle geese

red breasted mergansers

teals