Desert Wheatears on the east coast

I am afraid that more photos of these two little birds will follow in due course, but as of yet I am putting these two untouched images from my trip to the east coast today in order to catch the lifer that was the Desert Wheatear. The top photo shows a male bird that was in Lowestoft and the bottom shows a rather wet female that was in Gorleston-on-Sea near Great Yarmouth. Two birds for the price of one!

Kingfisher

......or two!

Mallorcan birds

Kestrel

Firecrest

Male Stonechat

Female Stonechat

The last of the photos from the trip to Mallorca show birds that can be seen fairly easily in the U.K., but made to look different by the wall to wall sunshine!

Hopefully, I will be able to get out and do some British birding fairly soon, but the weather on my one day off is not conducive to any sort of photography! Maybe next time the sun will shine.

Sardinian Warbler at Porto Cristo Novo

The ubiquitous bird of the area. These were seen and heard everywhere, including this one that again was seen every morning in a tree outside our apartment. The 'scratchy' song was very obvious, similar to that of its cousin, the Common Whitethroat and by the end of the week it was somewhat ingrained in our minds!

Crossbills in Mallorca

These two Crossbills, male and female visited the tree outside our apartment a few times during the week. On the majority of occasions they were seen feeding, but on one visit I noticed that they were collecting material in their cross beaks. Maybe birds nest at different times in Mallorca, but it did seem a bit early to be collecting nesting material at the beginning of October.

I was so focussed on watching and photographing the birds that I didn't notice until going through the photos at home that there is a green insect close to the male. I think that it is a Praying Mantis, the second one of our trip.

Booted Eagle at Porto Cristo Novo, Mallorca

Lisa and I have been away for the past week, a very welcome break to the sunny island of Mallorca. This was strictly a non birding holiday, it was time for us both to relax and unwind, but I still managed to take my bins and camera!

I was under strict instructions not to go running around the vicinity on the look out for all things feathered, but birds were encountered on our saunters around the area close to our apartment which was the small village of Porto Cristo Novo on the east coast of Mallorca. The 'best' bird encountered was this Booted Eagle, a new bird to us both and was seen riding high in the sky (approx 500ft) on some thermals looking for its next meal. The bird in question was the pale version, there are two morphs with the other being a darker version and although I wasn't certain on the I.D. at first, when I studied my Collins it was obvious that the bird in question was the pale morph Booted Eagle. Nice.

The photos are heavily cropped, but hopefully you can see the slightly lighter and barred flight feathers that is one of the identifying features. More photos of a few more of our feathered friends will follow, but as I have said, this was definitely not a birding holiday.