Clouded Yellow

I have never seen a Clouded Yellow butterfly in this country before and so I was quite shocked and a little excited to see one of these lovely flutters at Maxey GP the other day whilst having a stroll after work.

A butterfly that is a regular migrant to our shores, with numbers each year varying form just a few to several hundred. Not sure if this is a 'Clouded Yellow Year' or not, but there have been a few sightings around the east of the U.K.

Spot the butterfly!

Wood Sandpiper

Talk of my demise seems to have been premature.

With reports of a couple of Wood Sandpipers being present at my local patch of Maxey gravel pits, I managed to grab a couple of hours on Sunday to go and see if I could get a view of a wader that I have not seen locally for at least a year.

This site is looking rather good at the moment and with my first scan of the area I managed to see the first Wood Sandpiper, huddled down in the company of a Common Sandpiper. Continuing my perusal of the site I picked up the second Woody, fairly close by and also 3 Dunlin, 8 Green Sandpipers, 3 Ringed Plovers, 1 Little-ringed Plover and another 2 Common Sandpipers.

On walking back to the van, it was good to note that there were fairly large numbers of Common Blue butterflies present.

Hopefully, I will be back again soon.

If looks could kill!

Enough said?!

I am finding it harder and harder to have any time to myself just lately. Work has exploded with a vengeance,  after months of twiddling my thumbs, I now have no time to twiddle anything! Much less, get out and about and look at wildlife. Consequently, I am saying "Adieu" for a while. I may pop back if I find time for my hobby and I will continue to visit others blogs, but until then, I wish to thank you all for your continued patronage to this humble site.

I may see you on the other side.

Reed and Sedge Warbler

Two small, brown birds. Both come to Britain in the summer months in fairly large numbers in order to breed. They like spending their time in reed beds or thick undergrowth and they both have pretty similar songs.

Reed Warbler

Sedge Warbler

Below is a short video of the two birds in question, hopefully showing the difference in the two songs. The first bird is the Reed Warbler, a song which is 'chatty' and slow paced, consisting mostly of jittery notes which are repeated 2-3 times, interrupted by occasional mimicry or whistles. The second is the Sedge Warbler with a Reed Warbler in the background, this song is a series of long, loud sequences of not very varied excited notes relieved by rapid cascades of trills and whistles and occasional mimicry.

Bonaparte's Gull at Oare Marshes

Back in February of this year myself and my friend Chris Orders 'twitched' an adult Bonaparte's Gull that was frequenting a small pond in Eastbourne, Sussex, but things conspired against us and we failed to see this bird.

A couple of weeks ago another Bonaparte's, this time a first summer bird, turned up at a place in Kent called Oare Marshes NR. Today we 'twitched' again, but on this occasion we were successful in our mission.

It is supposed to be 'Flaming' June, but on arrival the wind was blowing a gale, spots of rain were hitting the windscreen and the temperature gauge dipped into single figures. Summer time in Britain. Nonetheless, the bird was seen and after giving us a bit of a run around, gave good views.

A bird that is from the States, as common there as 'our' Black-headed Gull, but is smaller and has an all black bill, along with short, pink legs.

Finally, Boney was in the bag!

Thanks, again, to Chris for driving. We must be mad!

Spotted Redshank at Maxey GP

Back to my normal sub-standard of photography today with a record shot of a truly stunning bird seen at my local patch of Maxey gravel pits for a whole 15 minutes, before it flew off, not to be seen again.

This summer plumaged Spotted Redshank was a welcome addition to my PBC year list which has now limped to 166, but does include 2 local lifers as well as some rather scarce local birds, such as the aforementioned Spotted Redshank. A bird that I have only seen twice before in the local area and not for a couple of years, so this was a very welcome sighting.

Reed Warbler

A bird that is more easy to hear than see. A skulking small, brown bird that comes to this country in the summer months to breed and spends the winter months in sub-tropical Africa.

A bird that I have never really been able to photograph well due to its habit of staying in dense reed beds. That has now changed.

It's a shame that in the bottom photo the bird is facing away from me, but I am quite pleased with the results. These two photos are crops of the originals, which are below. I put my fieldcraft `skills` into good use with this bird, hearing and seeing it first and then sitting still and waiting for the bird to come to me. At times he was less than 3 feet away, singing and just perched.

As always, click on the photos for a larger image.

Spotted Flycatcher

It says something about the state of this bird that you now have to `twitch` one in order to get it on your  year list, but that is exactly what I did yesterday morning.

The Spotted Flycatcher is disappearing from our countryside at an alarming rate, so consequently after Brian Stone reported that he had seen one in the village of Elton on Saturday, I made the short journey to see this little bird for myself.

On arrival at the church yard in the village I could hear the bird `singing`, but couldn't manage to find where it was singing from. I then looked high in a tree and there, on a dead branch was my first Spotted Flycatcher of the year, singing his heart out.

Always to far for a decent photo, but I managed a few passable shots, some of which are below.

White-winged Black Tern at Ferry Meadows

Ferry Meadows seems to be getting more than its fair share of good birds just lately, the Common Scoters and Black-necked Grebe of last week and then yesterday came the news of an adult White-winged Black Tern patrolling one of the lakes. Crikey!

My photos are less than satisfactory, being on the wrong side of the lake, but I am posting them as a record (again!), but Mike Weedon has kindly allowed me to use one of his stunning photos to show you what the bird should look like! Click on Mike's name above to see some more shots.

As can be seen from above, my shots do not do the bird justice, but below is one of Mike's photos. Much better!

copyright Mike Weedon

What a bird and a PBC lifer to boot!

Black-necked Grebe at Ferry Meadows

Another day, another good bird at Ferry Meadows and only present for the one day too.

Common Scoters at Ferry Meadows

Time for some more dodgy record shots of an addition to my annual PBC (Peterborough Bird Club) list. This morning I received a phone call from Mike Weedon to tell me that there were 2 Common Scoters at Ferry Meadows, a new bird for the list of 2013 and not a common bird in these parts by any measure. I have only seen one of these birds in the Peterborough area before, so this was a chance to double my total!

The weather was not conducive to any sort of photography, but I thought that I had to try and get some sort of 'record' shot of these two drake birds. As can be seen from the photos above (hopefully!), one bird has slightly less yellow on the bill than the other, but they are both male.

A bird normally seen on the coast and so this was a nice 'tick' for an inland, landlocked lake.

Whinchat at Maxey

It must be something to do with Wednesdays. Last week there were two of these superb little birds at my local patch of Maxey pits, but they were gone on Thursday morning. Today, another one of these birds was present, constantly distant and always on the move. I wonder if he will be there tomorrow?

Maxey is looking pretty good at the moment for a nice wader or three, the water levels seem to be under control and so there is a lot of mud exposed, just waiting for something to drop in. As well as the Whinchat, this morning there was a Grey Plover in almost full breeding plumage, a scarcity in these parts, although it was my third one of this year. Always a nice bird to see though, especially in their breeding finery.

Crap photo, great bird!

Hopefully, a sign of good things to come.

Common Tern

A graceful, elegant bird that breeds in the local area. Many people see them and say 'Black-headed Gull', or even worse 'Seagull'! Of course, these people are wrong in so many ways, as I have said before, there is no such bird as a seagull! A bird that will spend its' summer here and then fly south for the winter, either to west Africa or even as far as south of the equator.

Mr and Mrs Blackcap

This pair of Blackcaps have been visiting the garden for the past week or so. First the male arrives to make sure everything is okay and then his mate flies in and feeds whilst he surveys the area and then finally feeds himself. Not stunningly rare to have these birds coming into the garden, but this is the first time an obvious pair has been seen. They are nesting close by, fingers crossed for some young of this lovely warbler to pay a visit in time.