Wednesday 6 November 2024
Scilly - 5.10.24
Cornwall + Scilly 4.10.24
Saturday 19 October 2024
East Yorkshire- 29.9.24
Saturday 14 September 2024
Hemel - 31.8.24
The previous day I’d got up early to sit in the garden hoping for a flyover Tree Pipit. Sadly none were to be seen.
Fast forward to today and a morning in the garden cutting the lawn etc also failed to produce but after lunch I went out to put some rubbish in the bin and low and behold the familiar call of a Tree Pipit filled the air. I managed to pick it up as it flew high west. This was the 4th occasion and the 5th bird over my garden in the 10 years living here.
Wilstone- 30.8.24
Birthday birding again and the last one of my 40’s! A morning wandering around Wilstone produced 3 year ticks which were all seen from the hide. They were 2 Green Sandpiper, 2 juvenile Greenshank and 2 Hobby. A Kingfisher was also a patchwork challenge year tick.
3 Raven were to the north of the reservoir and 2 Wigeon were I think the first returning birds of the autumn.
Tuesday 18 June 2024
Normandy Marsh + Acres Down - 8.6.24
I joined Matt Moreton on the trip down to Hampshire. As he had to drop his brother off at Luton airport at 4am he picked me up on the way back and so we were on site around 7am. We wandered around the sea wall and joined 4 other birders but nobody had had any sign of our target species.
I cheated a bit and scanned Twitter and using video and photos already posted I worked out roughly where we should be looking and picked out a white blob tucked in the long grass and weeds but despite the odd shuffle it refused to show.
Tuesday 14 May 2024
Lesser Grey Shrike + Northern Lights! - 10.5.24
Sunday 12 May 2024
Alpine Accentor - 5.5.24
Cassiobury- 1.5.24
An early start at work due to after school childcare problems proved to be a good thing as upon arrival and whilst unlocking the front gates to our yard I heard a Firecrest singing from trees near the tennis courts! My 2nd self found Firecrest this year while at work. 10 minutes later and it’d moved north into the park and that was it.
Herts Local Patch Competition - 27-28.4.24
Another year had passed and it was time for the local patch competition. I was on site at 5.10am at Wilstone Reservoir but sadly it was raining and did so for the first 3 hours and even sat in the hide it was freezing cold.
Hirundines started appearing including my first House Martins of the year. Common Tern and Sedge Warbler were also year firsts and just as I was leaving the hide Ian Williams said he had a Swift near the car park steps. Another year tick and brought up 150 species for the year. A couple of Reed Warbler were had at cemetery corner before I ventured over to the other reservoirs. News was coming in of tern movement in surrounding counties so it wasn’t much of a surprise when I’d finished walking around Tringford Reservoir that Dave Bilcock had a found a Little Tern back at Wilstone. I rushed back and got onto it. 30 minutes after it was found it flew up and away to the SW having only been seen by 5 of us. It was just my 2nd for Tring and 3rd for Herts. It was also the rarest bird seen in the county that weekend so has won me the prize of a painting of the bird by Matt Moreton. A nice Arctic Tern was also seen and the number had risen to 3 by the time I left to visit College Lake and Pitstone Quarry.
Even though I couldn’t count what was at College Lake as it was just in Bucks I still popped in and saw the 2 Barnacle Geese present one of which has a yellow ring Y65 which was from one of the feral populations from Bedfordshire. The quarry was full of water which after the amount of rain we’ve had recently was much of a surprise.
12.5 hours later and I’d seen 68 species but was miles behind the leaders.